Wit of the Raven
by japanese-jew
Summary: Highly AU. Mr. Harry Potter is age eleven, and the possibilities for his future are endless. The magic system of Harry Potter has essentially been turned on its head.
1. A Little Whinging in Surrey

Wit of the Raven

Chapter One

_Summer, 1986_

"**Filthy bastard,**" a very much drunk, and purple-faced uncle Vernon screamed. "**We go through the trouble of raising you, feeding you, and . . . and . . .**" From here, the detestable man ceased in his ridiculing, and simply began to beat the small, incredibly emaciated boy, who would only stop his whimpering for time enough to shriek in pain at each strike of the belt. At the sound of this, Vernon would mutter about the neighbors, and only hit harder, trying to get him to shut up. This was counter-productive, until the child passed out in pain, and only gasped quietly afterwards. There were small, brown and red footprints leading from the door, the result of a rainy day without shoes. He wouldn't track mud into the house again.

_Winter, 1990_

The night before the celebration of the birth of Christ. A peaceful prophet, he must be rolling in his grave, thinking that this was how he was celebrated. A marginally larger boy ran out into the street, this time wearing threadbare sneakers, the soles of which were coming apart from the rest of the shoe, chased by the purple faced man, by the 'god given' name of Vernon, who was chasing him with a large cricket bat, and had just dropped his glass, a quarter of the way filled with eggnog. The fat man quickly caught up with the much smaller boy, who had tired out quickly, and began beating him in the middle of the street. The child made nary a noise, except for a sharp hiss of breath as he was hit particularly hard in the arm. The man remonstrated him, in a breathy voice, that, "This'll teach you to steal, FREAK!" Up the stairs, in a large bedroom, a morbidly obese child giggled, and ate another cookie, purloined from 'Santa'.

_Summer, 1991_

"Boy. Come over here." The same boy went over cautiously, seeing his uncle looking borderline angry, but soon overcame his hesitation. He walked forward, and unflinchingly received a sharp cuff on the head. "BOY! Do you hear that?" Harry listened, and heard silence. He closed his eyes, and concentrated on listening for a noise, any noise . . . and suddenly realized that he wasn't supposed to be listening for noise, but the absence of such. He suddenly remembered what he had forgotten. He gasped. The mail. His elder smiled vindictively, and smacked him again. "Go. Now. Today I shall be lenient, but, on another . . ." The boy quickly ran to the front door, and picked up the mail for which he had been punished. He ran back to the dining room, where his uncle rapped him on the head, hard, and sent the child to his room, to organize said mail.

The child bowed his head, and scampered off. In his room, he sorted the mail into three piles, one for Aunt Petunia, one for Uncle Vernon, and one for bills. "Gas, Marge," he muttered, involuntarily shivering at the last one, "Electricity, Smeltings, Hogwarts. . . hold on." He caught his breath, and tore open the envelope addressed to him, _H. Potter_. It read:

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft, and Wizardry_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc, Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards.)_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. Mr Snape will assist you in the acquisition of aforementioned supplies, and will come to you on July the 31st._

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

Some miserable plot by his relative to embarrass him? They wouldn't have the finesse to do that. It **must** be an outside factor. But who? He didn't have any friends, and Dudley's fellow torturers probably didn't know exactly where he lived, much less how to spell Sincerely. Or School for that matter.

He (presumably H. Potter) felt hope. Just a trickle, but significantly more than any he could remember. _Almost like the day of ascension_, he thought, _I'll be going from hell to heaven_. He grinned, and then quickly schooled his expression to one devoid of emotion. He carefully concealed the letter, and walked back out into his nightmare, his life.

_Summer 1991, July 31st_

Harry stood out on the step, shivering. If the letter was real, then he would exceedingly happy, and if it wasn't . . . He would have a cold. But it was worth it, just for the chance. He shivered.

Several minutes later, an angry Severus Snape was walking up the walkway, thinking,_ Why me? Couldn't he have simply asked his pet 'skelegrow accident' to do the deed for him? He probably had an ulterior motive, meddling old coot_. He was immaculately dressed in a black button-down shirt and pinstriped pants, and didn't seem too out of place in the well-to-do suburban neighborhood.

He was so deep in his thinking that he almost knocked on a child's head, mistaking it for a door knocker. The child looked somewhat terrified, somewhat happy, as Snape walked to him, and utterly terrified as the pale man's hand came dangerously close to his face.

Snape looked down to the child's eyes, _Is he six? Seven? No, the cheeks bones are about as high as a first year's . . . perhaps he's nine_, he wondered, as he asked the child, "Hello. . . I'm Professor Snape." He sneered, attempting to intimidate the child. The child looked even more terrified, and Snape inwardly smirked. Schadenfreude, his one true love. "Could you get. . . Harry Potter . . ." he all but spat the name, "for me?"

At this, the child scowled at the much larger man, and straightened up, pointing at his chest with his thumb. "_I'm_ Harry Potter." Almost immediately, he looked down and to the side, almost as if he was embarrassed at his outburst.

Snape blinked, hard. Once, twice, and a third time. He looked at the small boy in front of him, did a double take and said, "I believe we should speak to the Headmaster about this." The boy's eyes looked up at the man, and he saw his eyes. Those of Lily. He smiled, faintly at the thought of the kind woman, but then shook his head, to clear it. "Well. . ." he drawled, "Let's be off, Potter."

Harry's eyes lit up, like Christmas lights, full of hope, and he nodded, eagerly. Snape scowled, and let his hand fall loosely down. Surprisingly, he felt a small hand slip up into his own, and a small face smiled up at him, only truly smiling for the first time, right then. He quickly opened his hand, and shook off Potter's. The boy's eyes dimmed and he looked down, morose.

A/N: Okay, this should look familiar. This is a repost. I've edited a lot of stuff since you have last seen this (if you are, in fact seeing this for a second time) but I don't think that this chapter has been edited. I simply don't have the heart for it. I don't like to write abused scenes.

On to other things: My goals have changed since I started this fic the first time. I am now seeing the wasted opportunities here, in JKR's world. And I'm going to nab them. The house system is brutally different. Quidditch will be brutally different. Some characters may not exist. Hogwarts will be significantly larger. Magic may operate differently. Characters will be OoC. Beware. This is very AU.

Another note. I am now taking ideas for ships.

Kudos to wolf550e for the post-update grammar/tech check.


	2. Diagonally

_**Wit of the Raven**_

_**Chapter Two**_

Harry Potter and Severus Snape walked into a deserted alley, Snape pensively, and Potter with some trepidation. Without warning, Severus Snape roughly grabbed Harry's arm, and muttered _apparatus_ under his breath. A sudden whirl of colors, red, blue, green, magenta, aquamarine, vermillion, crimson, yellow, ebony, violet, silver, purple . . . suddenly, it stopped.

Harry had do his very utmost to avoid vomiting up the little food he had purloined, and took several deep gulps of air, before looking up at the imposing castle, which was immensely large, intensely grey, and extremely cold. He shivered some more, and thrust his arms into his armpits, attempting to gather some heat, and unconsciously moved closer to Snape. Snape in turn moved farther away, and Harry, noticing, blushed, and muttered his apologies.

The two of them walked up to the imposing doors, which opened up when they got closer to them, much like some modern muggle ones, except larger, and made of wood. The great hall was empty, and the two of them swept past the single table in the middle of the hall, and up the circuitous staircases, in search of Dumbledore.

They finally reached the Headmaster's office, and Snape whispered the password into the gargoyle's ear. Said ear twitched once, heralding the scary, loud, grinding sound of stone against stone, the wall parting to reveal the headmaster's office. Dumbledore, who was in the middle of an especially interesting muggle magazine called TEMP, and eating some of the house elves' delicious cuisine, was taken completely by surprise when a potions master on a mission and a little boy who was projectile clinging to the potions master, walked in on his breakfast. Headmaster Dumbledore quickly swallowed his food, put down the magazine, and after shooting at a reprimanding glance at Severus, who had shoved the child in front of him, he smiled benignly at the child, and asked politely to the child, "What's your name, child?"

The child, somewhat put at ease by the Headmaster's easygoing manner, replied shyly, "Harry Potter, sir." He looked down, at his feet upon seeing the Headmaster's disbelieving expression.

"I- but- a. . ." the normally calm Headmaster stammered, caught off guard by the child's answer. He looked closer at the child's features, and saw the sunken cheeks and thin bones of a starved child. It was possible, but why hadn't he known? The wards should've . . . he pushed the matter from his mind for the moment. There were more important things, like the here and now. Perhaps he was not the boy. Regaining his usual calm, he asked the nervous boy, "And, erm. . . Harry . . . exactly how old are you?"

Harry looked back up, cautiously, and seeing the elderly man's reassuring smile, said, hesitantly, "Exactly eleven, sir." He looked back down at his feet, not noticing the looks exchanged by Dumbledore and Snape, one panicked, and the other skeptical.

Snape stepped in now, and asked Harry, "Potter. . . Has anything . . . _odd_ ever happened to you? Perhaps when you were feeling a strong emotion, like fear, anger, or love?"

Harry's eyes grew wide, and he remained silent, almost shaking.

Dumbledore, correctly judging Harry's expression for one of fear told Harry, "Don't worry. We shan't be mad, no matter what your answer." He gave another of his famous, charismatic grins, and reclined in his chair, trying to give an appearance of relaxation, and comfort.

Harry gave a half smile almost as if testing the waters, and upon seeing no change on the Headmaster's face, relaxed a bit. "I... I... well, kind of." After saying his bit, he once again looked down.

Dumbledore exchanged more glances with Severus, and belatedly offered Harry a lemon sherbet. Harry politely declined, and returned to his shoes. "Harry. . . have you ever had odd dreams?" Children from wizarding families had notoriously long memories, often remembering things from their very early childhood, and in some rare cases, even their births.

Harry unconsciously looked from side to side, and tensed up, remembering previous wounds from mentions of his dreams. "I. . . n-no, sir. Definitely not," he assured,

Dumbledore, deeply troubled, once again informed Harry that he wouldn't be mad at him, no matter what.

Harry looked slowly up, and then down again. "I. . . dreamt once of a man on a motorcycle. An-and. . . a man with red eyes, like a cat's, and a disgusting green light."

Deeply significant looks were traded above Harry's head, and Dumbledore mentally held his head in his hands, disappointed in himself. He had put only one aspect of Harry's safety first, and all others had been neglected, possibly ruining Potter's chance of a happy life. It would have been significantly better to grow up with a big head, rather than in fear of a part of yourself. He was very disappointed in himself. "He . . . he is indeed Harry, Severus. Get him his things in Diagon Alley, and return afterwards."

Snape nodded, and pushed the boy relatively gently out of the door, and back past the apparation wards.

* * *

"Potter," Snape commanded, "What's first on your list?"

Harry pulled said list out of his pocket, looked down it. "Um . . . Th-the uniform, sir. I need to get a robe, khaki pants, a winter cloak, gloves. . ."

"Quiet, Potter. I know what the first year's uniform is. I see it often enough." he sneered. He then began striding off towards the grey building that Harry assumed was a bank.

"W-wait! Professor!" he called, struggling to catch up. "I haven't any money, sir." he commented, returning his gaze to his exceedingly familiar shoes and the unfamiliar ground, which seemed to be made of iridescent cobblestones.

"Potter, do you really think that Potter senior would leave you without any money?" Snape laughed, mirthlessly. "Nay, he wouldn't. We'll be going to your... trust vault. The Potter family got money long ago from what their name suggests. Although allegedly descendants of Ares, they were famous herbologists, and did excellent work with successful crossbreeds of plants. They even did a formal tour of the houses." he smiled again, that leer of his, less of a smile, and more of a grimace.

Harry asked quizzically, "Houses?"

Snape answered immediately, quite surprised, "My apologies, Potter, I had nearly forgotten you were raised by muggles. The houses are a system designed by the founders of Hogwarts to organize the students, based on interests. The four houses are Slytherin, for those who value ambition, Hufflepuff for those who value loyalty, Ravenclaw for those who value intelligence, and finally Gryffindor, for those who value bravery." He shook his head, ruefully. "It's rather more complicated than that, but they'll explain it more to you when you get there."

"Anyway, back to the Potters. First their heads went to Hufflepuff, where they first learned to work with plants. Afterwards, they converted to Ravenclaw, where they learned creativity. Keep in mind that this isn't all of the Potters, since not everyone in a family is going to exemplify a certain trait. This is only the majority of them. Anyway, that was undisputably the period in which they had the most interesting crossbreeds. Your great-great-great-great-uncle invented the Mimbulus Mimbletonia, intensely paranoid wizard he was, and also the devil's snare, and the whomping willow. Excellent defenses, little or no practical purpose, except for the stinksap, which could be made by normal means. In one generation, the patriarch of your family even crossbred a fairy with a turnip, and created the mandrake." he spoke almost as if forcing the words out, as if appalled that a Potter had done something well.

Harry interrupted Snape, intrigued. "What's a mandrake?"

Snape's sneer began to disappear, amused by the boy's genuine curiosity. "A plant with a shriek like a siren, that can ironically cure petrification, although its scream is fatal. Now, once they were established as one of the top pureblood families, they switched to Slytherin, playing in politics, and dabbling in the dark arts. Then, their archenemies, the Grindelwalds, rose to power. You'd do well to remember their names . . . you'll see far too much of them in your history books. Your great-grandfather helped Dumbledore kill the wizard by the way. Anyway, back to . . . Grindelwald was it? He sent his followers off to kill his mortal enemies, who were, as I said before, the Potters. He ended up destroying a number of the previously numerous Potters, and they swore off the dark arts, and switched to Gryffindor, abandoning the cleverness of Slytherin, and in return accepting the foolhardiness of Gryffindor. Shortly before your father and I began to attend Hogwarts, the form of the houses switched, but your father, the only Potter so far to go to Hogwarts post-reform stuck with Gryffindor. Most of the Gryffindor Potters became Hit Wizards and Aurors, and those who didn't die in the war died of old age." He shook himself, before adding, "Old age for us is typically around one hundred and fifty. I believe . . . " He rolled his eyes up, as if literally looking through his brain for clues. "Yes, that's most of the Potter knowledge you should know."

Harry gazed at the professor in awe, wondering aloud, "How do you remember all of that?"

Snape smiled, truly, for the first that day, at the child's surprise, and admiration. "Snapes and Potters once were great friends, and often inter-married. I'm probably closer related to you then say, Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster you just met. We, the Snapes, worked with potions, and the dark arts. However, we cultivated the ability to work with potions far more than that with the dark, for the dark arts was a common study, potions not so much. The less common a craft, the more lucrative it is. We often asked Potters to design plants that would make the brewing of potions easier. Root of Asphodel, used in the Draught of Living Death, is a substitute for unicorn's blood, rooster's breath, and brewed glory. Rooster's breath was notoriously hard to capture, glory difficult to brew, and obtaining unicorn's blood had the nasty side effect of a general cursed existence. The Draught of Living Death was therefore never really used, until a Potter invented asphodel, and therefore its roots."

"What's the Draught of Living Death?" Harry inquired.

"It's a potion that will instill a death-like sleep upon the drinker. As I was saying, Potters and Snapes were best friends. However," Snape grimaced again, and looked a bit angry, though more regretful, "Since Potters moved to Gryffindor, they've been on less friendly terms with us than previously." He sighed, and motioned for a goblin to come over. He pulled a golden key out of thin air, and handed it to the goblin, who nodded, and took them off to a wooden cart. It sped them to vault 247, the vault holding Harry's trust account. "I expect that you might break the mold of Gryffindor, since you haven't been brainwashed like almost all of the Purebloods which house to go into."

"Purebloods, sir?"

Severus Snape stopped smiling, and sighed. "Some of the people you will meet at Hogwarts will come from long wizarding lines, such as the Malfoys, or the Weasleys. Often, they believe that this will make their children more powerful magically, although this idea dates back to the times of great wizards like Seth the Chaotic, Osiris of the Netherworlds, Re the Sun-lord, Zeus the Lightning-Wielder, Thor-with-the-Hammer, Ares the War-Like. Many of their children intermarried, and had almost unbelievably powerful children, like Horus the Falcon, who usurped Re's position of power. . . But I digress. Nowadays, the intermarriage makes the lines weaker, since we've all already intermarried, and almost all purebloods are relatively closely related these days, and none of them has 'wonderful power' or anything. The Malfoys have at least seven relatives, possibly more, whom they keep in a cellar with enchantments to keep them from hurting themselves. Not everyone is as knowledgeable about how destructive inbreeding is as I am, and the world is full of bigots."

"Professor, what can you do with magic? I just learned about it a few days ago, and. . ." Snape blanched, if at all possible, and looked directly at the child, as if trying to see if he was pulling his leg. Seeing that he wasn't, he began an interrogation of sorts.

"Mr. Potter. You received a letter, which mentions of all the absurd impossibilities in the world, magic, and just assume it isn't from some murderer, attempting to lure you out of your house? Why didn't you talk to your relatives?"

Harry shivered, and quickly lowered his eyes. He whispered something quickly, almost impossible to hear.

"Mr. Potter, speak up."

"Last time I mentioned. . ." his voice dropped several decibels, "Magic, I was beaten within an inch of my life. I wouldn't show them the letter if my li. . ."

The professor interrupted him again, mid-word. "Beat you, Mr. Potter?" He let a bit of skepticism into his voice, for although he was surprised how emaciated the boy was, he was sure the headmaster wouldn't let an abusive man take care of the savior of the wizarding world.

"Yes, sir."

"Was this occurrence repeated often?" Snape asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Harry shook his head, no. "Not this badly, professor."

"But you were beaten, regularly."

"Er. . . ah . . . I wouldn't say regularly, sir . . ." Snape glared at him, and Harry quickly replied, "Roughly twice a month, professor."

Snape jerked his head back, before regaining his normal composure, and finally answered his question. "You can do anything with magic, if you're powerful enough," he informed Harry. "Magic was created by The Creator. The Creator was not good, nor was he evil, but neutral, and he left after creating magic and the universe. We don't even have any proof that The Creator existed, simply that we have no proof that he didn't." Snape smiled, completely absorbed in the subject now discussed. "There's free magic, which I'm sure you've performed before. When your emotions get out of hand, you let go of some of the control of your magic, and it is released. Highly dangerous, it is not encouraged by the ministry to try it. Many of the dark arts use it, in an odd combination of specific emotions and controlled magic. The Unforgivables require a certain kind of anger, and the Patronus charm, although not labeled dark uses this as well, although it requires happiness instead. The fidelius, also not labeled dark, requires a certain amount of fear.

"Controlled magic is free magic that has gradually associated itself with specific words and motions. It's a highly complicated art to design new controlled magic. It usually takes several people, at least ten, to make a spell, which is what a form of controlled magic is called." Snape bent over, whispering into Harry's ear, "The headmaster once told me that he singlehandedly created a spell. The amount of power that takes is extraordinary. In confidence, you do not wish to cross Dumbledore anymore than you wish to cross The Dark Lord."

"The Dark Lord, sir?"

Snape gave Harry an odd look, before a look of understanding came across his face, and he sighed.

The cart came to a complete stop, and the goblin took Harry's key. He unlocked the vault, revealing lots of green smoke, and behind the mounds of gold coins, stacks of silver ones, and heaps of small bronze ones. Snape walked in, and picked up a gold one. "A galleon. You could buy a good chair with one of these." He walked over to the silver ones, and picked that up as well. "A sickle. Seventeen of these to a galleon. A mass-produced book." He carefully put the silver one back, and tossed Harry one of the bronze. "Knuts. Twenty-nine to a sickle, a low-quality quill." Harry tossed him back the knut, and picked up one of the knapsacks hanging on the walls. Before his eyes, one of the stacks of sickles dropped quite a bit. He put it back, and the stack regained its height. He once again pulled down the knapsack, and began stuffing it with coins, roughly a hundred of the knuts, half as many sickles, and ten galleons.

They came out of the vault, and Snape asked Harry, "So you know none of your history?" Harry shook his head no, and watched, wide-eyed, as the bag pulled itself closed, and small cursive writing appeared on the outside, reading, 'Harry Potter's Vault.' "The Dark Lord, Voldemort terrorized the populace, and he attacked your house. Your parents were part of the Order of the Phoenix, and therefore a threat to him. In addition, he heard a prophecy involving you and he, or he and another child, and he surmised that if he killed you, the prophecy would be completed, and he wouldn't have to deal with it. Prophecies are a nasty business." he shook his head, and then smiled. "However, it didn't fulfil the prophecy, and The Dark Lord was killed by his own spell, and you escaped relatively unharmed. The only thing that remained on you to . . . commemorate the fall was the scar on your forehead." Snape added, as an afterthought, "And that your parents were dead.

"It was the chance of one in a million that you're still alive. The Dark Lord killed hundreds of people by his own hand, and very few ever escaped. The Prewetts, except for one and her children, are all dead. The McKinnons. The Boneses. Your parents, who, I must admit, were both marvelously powerful, are also dead. After The Dark Lord's death, you were called a savior, and in order to 'protect your attitude,'and 'prevent your head from swelling,' as well as to keep away the deatheaters, Voldemort's followers, still at large, Dumbledore brought you to your. . . relative's house. He did not foresee their . . . violent side." Snape angrily shook his head, and then smiled, although it seemed rather forced. "On to Madam Malkins, and her clothes shop, then!" The two of them walked in, and were greeted heartily by the owner.

"Severus!" she exclaimed, shaking his hand strongly. "And. . . who do you have here? Your son?" she inquired.

The older man shook his head, saying, "No madame, my son is eight years old, not eleven," Snape replied. "This. . . this is Harry Potter."

Madam Malkins gasped, and exclaimed, "Harry Potter? Isn't he, a little. . . young?"

Snape shook his head sadly, and replied, "No. Mr. Potter's eleven years old today. That will suffice." He lowered his voice, and whispered, "You're thankful too?" She nodded, sadly, and Snape murmured his apologies. He cleared his throat, and said, blandly, "Normal Hogwarts attire."

The woman pursed her lips, and snapped her fingers, and the measuring tapes came out and started measuring his height, waist, space between his nostrils, and everything in-between. He got the required robes, cloak, hat, khakis, polos and gloves at Malkins', before walking across the street to the apothecary. He got the standard pewter cauldron, specially coated so that the pewter wouldn't react with any of the potions. He got some lovely scales, recommended by Snape himself as being easier to use than the average ones, and a golden sickle, which might give ingredients cut with it higher potency. Harry was advised by Snape not to ask the Herbology teacher, since she would almost definitely decline, but to take first, and make up excuses if asked later.

Next they passed by Flourish and Blotts, to get his general books, such as The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1), A History of Magic, Magical Theory, A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, One Thousand Herbs and Fungi, Magical Drafts and Potions and The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection. He also got A Near-Squib's Guide To Ancient Runes, Logical Magic, and The Dark Forces: A Guide, with Professor Snape's urging. "And this too," he said, pulling Harry over to a small section in the back of the store labeled Muggleborn. "He may be a racist, but Lidder gives an excellent description of pretty much all old magical traditions." Snape pulled down Purebloods Are Better For Mudbloods, and when Harry pointed at 'Mudbloods' inquiringly, Snape replied, "Slur for Muggleborn. Ignore it."

Professor Snape levitated Harry's stack of books to the counter, where the cashier, with a bored look on his face, charged Harry three galleons, four sickles and eighteen knuts for his books.

Harry and Professor Snape stopped briefly in Eeylop's Emporium, and after deciding for a few minutes, got a jet black raven, on the grounds that it was significantly more intelligent than an owl, and since it was larger than the typical crow, better for carrying packages.

Eventually, they went to Ollivanders, in business since 382 BC, to get a wand for Harry. The two of them walked in, and saw an enormous room, perhaps half the size of a football field, packed with bookcases filled to the brim with boxes. Snape quickly walked to the lone desk, tapped the small bell three times, and if by magic, a tall, thin man with spindly fingers, arms, and legs appeared. "Now if you'd please fill this out, good sir," he said in a low monotone, handing Harry a quill and a sheet with seemingly inane questions, starting with, 'Are you right or left handed?' and ending with, 'If given the choice between feeding one family forever, or all families for one year, which would you choose?' Harry finished it and handed it back to the man, who scanned it over, murmuring, "Interesting, interesting. . . ."

Professor Snape, tapping his foot impatiently, snapped, "Stop dithering, Ollivander, get it over with."

"Yes, yes, of course, good sir. _Accio_." a wand flew into his hand, and Ollivander handed it to Harry. "Here you go," Ollivander said, beaming, as if showing off his first grandchild. "Yew, quite rigid, basilisk fang core. . . ." the instant it touched his fingers, Harry felt them warm up, and he smiled, before waving it mindlessly. A replica of the basilisk spouted out, scaring him into dropping the wand. Ollivander levitated it back into the box, and frowned, in discontent. "That was far too easy to find. Should you like to try a few others? They may be. . . better suited to you." Ollivander tossed him wand after wand, getting the same reaction, the kappa from the core coming out, sometimes moving a little, before disappearing.

Ollivander's scowl lifted, and he began to smile. "Good, good," he muttered, delighted by such a compatible, yet difficult customer. Ollivander eventually pulled a wand out of the back of the store, and handed it to Harry. Harry grimaced, feeling the wrongness, but also rightness, of the wand, and attempting to push it back to Ollivander, waved it a bit, by accident. A gigantic phoenix leapt out of it, followed by a black mist, which consumed the singing phoenix, turning it brown, then a sickly green, before its song ceased, and it face Harry again, a bare skeleton. It cawed harshly, its once beautiful voice ruined, before disappearing. He shivered, and all but threw the wand back at Ollivander, who stood there, stunned.

Ollivander shook himself and muttered something about the 'Brilliant kids of the future,' before taking Harry's hand, and plunging him into the back. He whispered _lumos_, and the room lit up, revealing long poles, many of them twice or three times Harry's size. He turned to Harry, and said gravely, "Harry. You must promise not to tell anyone about where your wand came from. You will tell your companion that I found one in the depths of the basement, with a hair from a centaur's mane, good for. . . say, charms. You will not, under any circumstances, tell them about your staff, or not until you are a fully grown wizard." Harry nodded, confused.

Ollivander smiled, and pulled a small pocket knife out of his pants. He flipped it open, and motioned for Harry to hold out his hand. Harry did so, cautiously, and Ollivander pricked Harry's finger, and dropped the blood on the floor. He whispered a few words, quickly, and under his breath, and the drop expanded, creating a faint red mist. He quickly hurried after it, and pulled up a two meter stick, with a small drop of blood on it, which Ollivander pressed into it.

"Curious," he commented, inspecting the staff.

"Mr Ollivander, what's curious?" Harry asked, looking the staff up and down. He could feel from there that it was . . . right, but he didn't know how.

"To make a staff, we trap a spirit inside the heartwood of a tree. With its consent of course," he quickly added. "Generally, we have to coer-" he coughed, "convince the spirit to vacate its body, but oddly, this Dragon came forth willingly. Said he was told to, by his shaman. Even brought his own wood, a lovely redwood, with its sprite still inside. The sprite translated for him, you see, and still inhabits the wood. That was. . . some ninety years ago, when I started working with staffs. Father had apprenticed me nearly twenty years before, and I had just made my own staff, and it was quite lovely, with a nameless Phoenix, and a pixy by the name of Belinda entrapped. . . lasted four score years, and I haven't had the heart to replace her yet. Staffs operate oddly. They take a little more energy to do spells, but they're more powerful if you manage them. It'll take you a little more time to get a spell than it would with a wand, but I'm sure you'll prefer the results with this." He informed Harry that if he was to have a staff, he should take ancient runes, so that he could himself make improvements, or fix it. He even lent Harry a book on staffs and their properties, seemingly delaying the time before Harry would even touch the staff. Harry was happy to merely look at it, not needing to touch it, not yet.

Suddenly, Ollivander looked at his watch, nodded, and motioned for Harry to touch the staff, standing back. Harry grinned, gripped it with his two hands, and set it strongly on the floor in front of him, before lifting it, minutely. It was enough. An enormous Dragon, not the minuscule replica of before, but a fully sized one, burst out of the staff, followed by a sprite, giggling as it climbed up it into the wind.

Ollivander watched Harry look up into empty air in delight, and smiled, broadly. A minute later, Harry looked back at Ollivander, and the elderly man inquired, "What was it like?"

The question took Harry by surprise, and he looked around the room, surprised that the shelves were still standing, and that the Dragon hadn't himself burst out of the room. "You didn't see them?" After Ollivander shook his head, Harry answered, "they were marvelous. The Dragon was a fiery red and the sprite a nice green and brown colour. . ." He paused, and frowned. "Mr. Ollivander, will that happen every time I touch it?"

"No. Only the first time. You can, however, summon the spirits, and speak with them. My pixy was a wonderful friend, until she passed away. . . terribly sad, it was." He sighed, and remembering something, shrank and illusioned the staff with the password, "Bring flowers to the funeral for a friend." After rooting around in his pockets, he handed Harry a wand polishing kit. "They get horribly mad if allowed to get dusty, and I believe that the wood sprite would be worse then the average spirit, for it is forever connected to its tree." He grinned a lopsided grin, and walked with Harry back out to an impatiently pacing Snape. He quickly instructed Harry to pay Mr. Ollivander and leave, so that they would not be late for their dinner in London. Harry waved goodbye, and feeling the staff in his pocket, smiled. It would be excellent to be a wizard.

**A/N: Er... if anyone notices any glaring anachronisms or mistakes in grammar/punctuation, PLEASE tell me. I misspelled capitol (as capital) on my fictionpress account, and no one told me that I had until months later. I was mortified.**

**EDIT: This has been edited slightly, but it's pretty tricky to notice. Only one paragraph.**

**EDIT 2: Thanks to Hedwig Edwiges, a great reviewer, and although I haven't read any of her stuff, probably a just as great author, who found a grievous error. This edit has been rendered obsolete by EDIT 4.  
**

** EDIT 3: Thanks to wolf550e who has ret-edited this chapter.**

**EDIT 4: Thanks to Draeconin who pointed out that I still had Snape's family history screwed up. Final revision (I hope): Both of Snape's parents are pureblood wizards, he is a pureblood.  
**


	3. Issues With The Leaky Cauldron

Wit of the Raven

Chapter 3

Harry stretched out on his bed, grinning widely. He'd had the most wonderful day today, and although Professor Snape had seemed a bit brusque at first, he wasn't that bad if you understood him. Professor Snape was a kindred spirit, although not one to be protected by, simply kindred. Perhaps a second cousin in spirit's terms, good for a place to stay a night, although moderately uncomfortable for any longer. Harry grimaced as he thought of his second cousin, and then of Harry Hunting. He curled up, before stretching out again. He was with Professor Snape, and there would be no more Harry Hunting, ever again. Professor Snape had hinted at it several times, and had seemed as close as a person like Professor Snape ever seemed to laughing in Harry's face when he asked if he would have to go back to the Dursleys. "Not on my life, Mr. Potter," he remembered. Harry turned over, planted his face in the pillow, and gripped it, breathing into the pillow.

Harry was in the Leaky Cauldron just temporarily, as Professor Snape had said something about picking something up for the Headmaster. The Professor had set up some kind of blue perimeter, that he said 'discouraged' people from attempting to get in. Harry hadn't touched it, for fear of disrupting it, but was having fun exploring his room, since even this small space was several times as large as the cupboard. There were two rooms, a main room and a bathroom. In the main room was a bed, a table a fireplace, a bookcase, a mirror, a bedside table, and a witch-light. By the fireplace there was a large bag, filled completely with powder, and on the table, there was a polished, antique radio, and a book. After exploring the bathroom, and amusing himself with the different types of bubbles, Harry had briefly explored the room, crawling under the bed, looking in the drawers of the bedside table, and briefly examining the closet and its magic hanger. He hadn't tried to speak to the mirror, as it rather disturbed him, a pale face staring out of the mirror, always staring at him.

Harry closed his eyes, before opening them again, triumphant. An aspect of the room he hadn't explored! The book on the table. He rolled out of the bed, and ran the few meters distance to the table, before plopping down in the chair, far too large for him. He ignored it, and began to read the book. He flipped to the first page, and started reading, before deciding to go back to his wondrous bed. He picked up the book, ran back to the bed, jumped on, and began to read.

_On The Leaky Cauldron_

_- The Leaky Cauldron prides itself on its fine food, fine rooms, and fine employees. If you ever have any complaints, please speak to me, Tom. I can be found from 6 in the morning, to 12 at night in the main entrance._

_- Amenities include a continental breakfast, and free use of our rather extensive library._

_- If you ever would like something, floo-call 'management' (pronounced ma-nuhge-meant) and direct your request to the head elf, Greco. They will, of course, not do laundry._ _The incantation for the charm is _Clean (item)_. Place the item of clothing on a flat surface, and draw an upside down cheering charm somewhere on it-_

(a picture was shown, a smiley face)

_Don't forget- you must want it to be clean, or it never will work._

Harry cocked his head to the side, and began to flip through the pages.

_On the excellent instant room serv..._

_On the superb lunch menu..._

_On the superb din..._

_On the..._

_On the..._

_On the..._

_On the..._

Presently, Harry came to realize that he was flipping through the pages without actually seeing the words, and slammed the book shut again, before standing on his bed, and throwing it at the table. It opened as it flew threw the air, and landed open, the pages folded. Harry sniggered, before running to the table, and carefully returning it to its previous position.

Harry twiddled his thumbs for maybe twenty seconds, before remembering his purchases, and emptying his bag from Flourish and Blott's. He opened The Standard Book of Spells (Grade One) by Miranda Goshawk, and flipped to page one.

_In order to cast a spell, only one thing is **neccesary** for the casting of the spell: the **desire** to cast the spell. However, in order to cast a stronger spell, or one that requires less energy, one must know the set incantation, have a wand, and know the set motions. As your magical education progresses, more requirements will come to light, such as magical reagents, runes, specific times and specific emotions, but they will not be necessary for_ _the use of the books in the Standard Book of Spells series. _

_This series is designed to teach students of magic by learning simple spells early on, ones that will prepare them for the more difficult spells in subsequent books in the series, so that the student will be proficient when he/she goes out into the world._

_Spells will be explained thusly-_

_An explanation of the spell on the first page, along with a brief history of the spell, including creator, time period, and uses throughout history._

_The second page will be comprised of diagrams illustrating the proper motions for the spell, and helpful hints for practicing the spell._

_On the last page will be a copy of the ministry's notes on the spell._

Intrigued, Harry turned the page, and was rather surprised to see a page that said nothing other than, "Lumos. Tap with wand." Harry pulled his miniaturized staff out of his pocket, and tapped it lightly. The page expanded extremely quickly, to a page roughly the size of a poster. Harry cursed softly, before he began to read.

Lumos_: The spell creates light from the magical focus used to cast it, typically a wand, although when cast wandlessly, the light typically comes from the hand._

The page went on to explain the origins of the spell, (_perhaps the first spell, ever_), and uses, (_such as in the great vampire slaying expeditions of 1273, and the last one in 1843._) Harry, eyes wide, read it all as quickly as he could, before tapping it again, causing the poster to shrink back to page size. He tapped the next page, labeled, "Lumos Two. Tap with wand," and this one enlarged to a poster of similar size, with a series of moving photos. Harry blinked for a few seconds, before deciding that it was just more magic. At the very top of the poster, it was written "Double tap to enlarge," so he tapped the photo twice. Immediately, a large grey gas spat out of the photo, and quickly formed as a wizard, in long black robes. The apparition casually flicked his wand hand's wrist forward, and exclaimed, "_Lumos!_" His robes became lighter, as did his wand, and he seemed elated. The man sublimated again, and returned to his photo.

Harry eagerly tapped the next photo, eager for more information. The next photo had simply a hand, showing the flicking motion closer up, and then a slower version. The final photo just had the face of the wizard, and the sound of _lumos_, clearly enunciated, "Loo-**mohss**"

At the bottom of the poster, it essentially described what Harry had seen already in the pictures, although it mentioned that he needed to _desire for the light to exist_, and Harry quickly closed the poster, and turned the page to the third page, which wasn't another of the tap-pages. It was a long list of symbols, letters, and numbers, which Harry couldn't make head or tail of, so he gave up, and closed the book, eager to try to do the spell.

Harry stood at the foot of his bed, gripped his wand, and awkwardly flicked his wrist forward, almost forgetting to mumble out, "_Lumos_" as he did so. When he did, he put far too much emphasis on the first syllable, and made the soft 's' sound like a hard 'z'. Nothing happened. He nervously laughed at himself, before bracing himself, and going at it again. "_Lumos,_" he cast with conviction. Again nothing happened, so he went back to his book on the floor, and checked the instructions for casting the spell. He skimmed through the instructions, realized that he had forgotten to want, no to **need** the light, and made a face. He tapped the poster, closed the book, and stood up again.

Harry concentrated as hard as he possibly could on light, the way that it cast shadows, and the way it lit up a room. The way it was more pleasant that darkness, and less intimidating than darkness. How often he wished he had light in the dark cupboard under the stairs, and as he thought of these things, he flicked his wrist, he softly murmuring, "_Lumos._" The room was flooded with light, and Harry had to blink his eyes a few times to acclimatize them to the new amount of light, which was almost blinding in its intensity. He wished that it would go down a little bit, so that he could think, and it seemed almost like it did, but later Harry dismissed it as a figment of his imagination.

Harry closed his eyes, and threw his wand to the ground, trying to concentrate on ending the light. He wracked his brain, trying to remember what he had read in the book, something to end the curse, maybe an anti-light, spell, or a counter charm. Suddenly, it struck him. He grinned widely, and yelled, "_Nox!_" at the top of his lungs.Abruptly, the light ceased, and Harry opened his eyes again, amazed. He breathed, "Wicked," picked his wand, and continued to experiment with the spell.

Harry decisively flicked his wand, and cried, "_Lumos!_" Nothing happened. Harry waited several more seconds, but still nothing happened. Irritated, he again cried, flicking his wand, "_Lumos!_" Nothing happened. He mentally went over the steps in head, _Incantation, Focus Movement, Reagents N/A, Desire, and . . . ah. Right. Desire._

Once again, Harry called to mind everything that he associated with light, flicked his wand, and shouted, "_Lumos!_" joyfully, again being nearly blinded by the spell. "_Nox_," he said gleefully, the room again plunged into relative darkness.

"_Lumos! Nox. Lumos! Nox. Lumos! Nox. Lumos! Nox._" Gradually, Harry felt that it was easier to cast _Lumos_, as it mattered less and less whether he thought of **all**of the things he associated with light, properly pronounced the words, or even waved his wand. He also learned that he could alter the amount of light he received by wishing for a different kind of light, the light that gave enough illumination to do homework, late at night, as opposed to the light that rivaled the sun in intensity.

After he had finished practicing, he got a piece of lined paper, to make his own notes on the spell. He wrote _Lumos_ at the top of the paper in large, jagged print, and then made a bullet point on the third line. Harry scribbled 'Desire', and underlined it several times, before making another bullet point, and writing 'Wand Movement', which was quickly followed by 'Incantation'.

Harry cocked his head to the side, trying to think of whether he had missed something or not, and ran through the steps in his head. He shrugged his shoulders, and wrote 'Wand' below 'Wand Movement'. He went back to his book to see if he had forgotten anything, and eventually decided he hadn't.

While closing the book, Harry suddenly remembered what it had said on the first page. The only requisite for doing the spell was desire, the book had informed him. He put down his wand, and lacing his fingers together, as if in prayer, thought, _lumos_, _lumos_, _lumos_. Nothing happened, and he sighed, deciding to try it slowly, gradually removing his supports, the wand, the incantation, and the movement. He tried removing the incantation first, internally chanting _lumos_ as he flicked his wrist and thought of light. Immediately, the desired light appeared, although Harry could easily feel the difference, this spell briefly making him catch his breath. Afterwards, he quickly cast _nox_ using the same technique.

Next, he simply clutched his wand fiercely, without moving it, and concentrated as hard as he possibly could on all of the different aspects of the light he wanted to create, and the incantation for the spell. He thought _lumos_ as hard as he possibly could, over and over again, as before, and gradually he began to see a light growing on the stick. He kept at it, concentrating on the light, and on making the light of the wand grow, and it slowly did, until finally it was at its limit. Sweating heavily, and gasping for breath from the exertion, he cast _nox_ normally, causing him to gasp, and fell back onto his bed, exhausted.

He ached in places he hadn't known existed, and still felt weak from exhaustion. It was as if his entire body was on fire, but simultaneously freezing. He moved his arm, finding that it didn't in fact cause the pain to change at all, and stood up. He began to beat at his body in a sad attempt to make the pain go away. It didn't. He began to quietly cry, too tired to scream, and lay down on the floor, rolling and twitching, trying to make the pain go away. Eventually, he lay still, his eyes drifting shut as he began to fall asleep through the pain.

* * *

When the professor returned to the room where he had placed his charge, he was unpleasantly surprised by an unconscious Harry next to the bed. His arms were slumped to his right, and his legs splayed out to either side, in what looked like an exceedingly painful position. Snape cast _petrificus totalus_ on the fallen figure, and was rather surprised when Harry's eyes immediately jerked open as his arms were wrenched to his sides and his legs straight. Snape was rather surprised to see them filled with pain, twitching frenetically. Snape waited a few moments for the pain to pass, but it didn't, and Harry's eyes twitched from side to side with greater and greater urgency. 

Upon seeing this, Snape quickly cast _finite incantatem_ and was pleased to see Harry's eyes stop running around. Harry's body relaxed, and he moaned in pain as he let his head flop to the side. "I'm sorry, Professor Snape," he whispered.

"I see no reason why you should be sorry Harry. In fact, it is I who should be sorry. I didn't foresee the full body binding spell having that kind of effect on you. I'm sorry." Snape's eyebrows drew together in a sort of confused grimace as he apologized. "It was only supposed to make your body totally still so that I could levitate you onto the bed without any harm coming to you. I didn't mean to wake you."

Snape's cloak whipped about as he stalked forwards. "I wonder why the spell caused you such pain," he pondered. "It's rather unlikely that you're allergic to spells, it's a squib illness, not a wizard's. And you have your wand, so you're clearly not a squib." He abruptly turned towards Harry, and upon noticing the book on the floor, squatted down, pulling it over to him. "Hm... this may be the source of our problems, Mr. Potter. Have you been practicing spells?"

"Just the one, Professor. I'll show you," Harry groped around for his wand, before flipping over and propping himself up on his elbows. "_Lu-_"

Snape cut him off, "No demonstration will be necessary, Mr. Potter. I believe you. Although it seems peculiar that you are suffering from E.M.E. after a _lumos_."

"E.M.E., Professor?" Harry inquired.

"Extreme Magical Exhaustion. The common," he sneered the word, as if disgusted by the very concept of it, "term is Burnout. Do you remember an excruciating pain accompanied by an inability to move or even really _think,_ after a certain number of spells?"

Harry nodded vehemently and he answered, "Yes sir. I was attempting to er... cast? Is that the word?" At Snape's nod, he continued, "I was trying to cast _Lumos _silently and without a wand movement, sir."

His professor quickly drew in a breath, before slowly exhaling. "And whatever might have prompted this unusually unintelligent behavior, Mr. Potter? I'm quite sure that Mrs. Goshawk doesn't encourage the idea of silent or wandless charms until at least Sixth Year. Where would you have even gotten the idea for one?"

"Well, she mentioned that all that was necessary for a spell was the need, the desire to cast it, so I started off small and built up," he started. "First I used all of the stuff that was mentioned in the book, intention, wand, wa-"

"Yes, yes, I'm familiar with the casting of a spell," Snape interrupted. "Go on."

Harry nodded, before beginning to speak as quickly as possible. "So then I tried without the incantation and that was easy, so then I tried to do it without moving my wand, but that was really hard so I got Extremely Magical Exhausted." Harry paused for a breath, before correcting himself. "Uh, I mean, Extremely Magically Exhausted."

"Close. It's Extreme Magical Exhaustion, Mr. Potter. I'd like to see you do the spell without the incantation some other time, but-" at the sight of Harry's hand inching towards his wand, he spat, "_Accio!_" Harry's wand jumped into his hand, and he continued, "But not until after you have fully recovered. E.M.E. is a serious ailment, and can't be cured by any magical means. In fact, any magic performed on the person affected by E.M.E., or by the affected person, will cause it to awaken again, and you will be again afflicted by the pain and exhaustion."

Harry's eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, "So that's why I can't see!"

Snape's eyes narrowed in on Harry. "You don't seem blind to me."

Harry bit his lip, as he tried to think of the words to describe what he meant. "Well, not **blind, **sir. I mean... everything is blurry, and a little out of focus, and..."

"It sounds like you're myopic, Harry. That is to say, near sighted. Most likely your magic has been compensating for your sight since you began to show the signs. After a couple of weeks your magic will let you see again... in the interim, you can still read if you bring the book close to your face, and I'll obtain some self correcting glasses for you. But don't try to let yourself see, it could have disastrous concequences. "

Harry groaned as he realized what this meant, and asked, "So I won't be able to do **any** magic until I'm better again?"

Snape arched an eyebrow. "Your powers of observation astound me, Mr. Potter," he sneered in derision. "None whatsoever. Unless you have a great urgency to feel the pain of depletion **again**." Snape paused for a second. "Do you?"

"Um, no Professor."

"Good." Snape frowned, stood up, and then sat down again on the bed. "In a typical situation, I would take you back to your family and let them care for you, but obviously that wouldn't work with you."

"Yes Professor," Harry said quietly.

"So I suppose you'll have to stay here," Snape carried on blithely. "I'll arrange for you to buy the room, we'll set up some basic wards, and if all goes well you'll live here until you come of age."

Harry started at this, and stood up on his knees. "What?"

"While you were exhausting your magical source, I was arranging for you to be emancipated. There is a law that allows for the last surviving member of a family to be emancipated if he so wishes." Snape paused again, looking Harry in the eye. "You **do** want to be emancipated, don't you?"

"Um, Professor, I don't know what emancipated means," Harry replied softly.

"Ah." Snape bit his lip, before starting, "When one's parents aren't treating a child well, the child will become emancipated to free it from the parents. You aren't legally allowed to do magic," Snape gave Harry a hard look, "But you wouldn't be able to normally."

"Well, they wouldn't know if I was practicing magic, would they?" Harry grinned a little at Snape.

Snape frowned, and replied, "On the contrary, there are enchantments set up all around England to detect magic." Seeing Harry's terrified face, he added, "Don't worry, the worst you'll get for performing under aged magic is expelled from school and your wand broken in two- Really, no big deal."

"No big deal? No big deal!" Harry started, his voice rising, "If I get expelled then I'll have to go back to the Dursleys, and everyone will hate me, and I'll have to go to . . . "

"You will _not _go back those despicable muggles," Snape spat, interrupting Harry, "Ever. You have my word." He narrowed his eyes at Harry, before nodding and pulling a beautiful dagger from out of his sleeve. "As I see you do not believe me, Harry, I'll swear a wizard's oath on it." He began to awkwardly roll up his right arm's sleeve, while explaining the concept to Harry. "A wizard's oath is a promise to uphold something. Like a regular oath. As in, 'I swear to do in my mother'. Except that these are binding. Quite literally, they're bound in blood. So while I don't have to do in my mother," he pulled his dagger up to his arm and made a small horizontal slash on the side of his arm. Snape grunted, and then quickly moved to the bedside table, placing the dagger on the table and raising his arm directly above it. Holding his arm in place, letting blood slowly drip onto the knife, he resumed his brief lecture. "I _will_ have to do what I swear to do with my blood. There is no alternative. The oath will drive me insane if I deny its siren call."

At this, Harry's eyes widened, and he quickly began to protest, "Professor, there's no reason to do that, I mean, I certainly wouldn't wish insanity on anyone, and if there are circumstances that mean that I have to go back to my relatives, then. . . ."

Snape glared at Harry, and was about to say something, when he saw that about a tenth of a milliliter of blood had accumulated on the knife. He drew his wand with his left hand and sloppily waved it over the cut a few times, muttering under his breath. Harry watched with amazement as it slowly but surely healed, right before his eyes.

"Potter, there is no doubt that I would do this already, no child deserves that kind of treatment. This will merely function as a warning signal for me. I will even include loop holes. You'll see." He gestured for Harry to sit on the bed, and he did so. The professor knelt down, and quite firmly told Harry to raise his wand hand. Harry did so, with much trepidation, and Snape carefully pressed his right thumb into the blood, before pressing his thumb into Harry's, and intoning, "I call upon the Covenant of Lustitia, my party's sacrifice being to do all that is within my power to prevent the other party from ever returning to his Aunt and Uncle Dursley's abode. The other party's sacrifice is naught." Tendrils of flame appeared before Harry's eyes, spelling out 'Concur?' Harry didn't move, eyes wide, until Snape nodded frantically.

Harry breathed, "I- um. Yes. I-I concur." A red vine climbed from each of their thumbs, up their arms, and up through their noses. Harry started at the odd feeling of seeing something moving, but not feeling it, and looked at Snape, checking to see if this was normal. It apparently was, as the professor's eyes were relatively calm.

"Everything seems to be fine, do you feel at all different?" The professor inquired.

"Um, no, not at all." Harry truthfully answered. "Is that bad?"

Snape's lips curled up into a smirk, replying, "No, not at all. Anyways, back to our original conversation, before I sidetracked us. The ministry will send you a letter when they realize that you've been doing under-aged magic. You haven't received an owl yet, so you're obviously fine."

Harry nodded, visibly relieved, before his eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "But if they have all of those enchantments set up, shouldn't they know that I'm doing magic?"

Snape smirked, before easily replying, "I'll give you a book so that you understand it and all of its loopholes."

Harry nodded, solemnly, and Snape broke out into a grin that would have been true if not for the slightly malicious look in his eye. "However, it would definitely **not **be a good idea to cast until you understand when you can, and when you can't cast magic. Good thing that after E.M.E., you can't do any magic until your stores of magic are completely regenerated, unless you want to relapse."

Harry softly groaned, and stretched out on the bed. "Isn't there anything you can do to make me get my magic back faster? Like, use a potion?"

"Potions pull the magic of your body out of it to use in a very specific way, conserving energy. They are pulling **magic.** Using magic. You will regenerate your magic over the course of two weeks. During that period of time, you may not touch anything with active magic. That includes the door, which leeches magic to lock and unlock. You will not use your wand. You will not leave this room."

Harry sighed, and turned over on the bed, so that he was lying on his stomach. "Still better than at the Dursleys. But what will I do?"

"Read. Go through your textbooks, if you retain any of the knowledge, then you may end up impressing your professors. Do **not** under **any** circumstances, practice any of the spells, especially not the transfiguration ones. While recovering from E.M.E., any magic will use all of the magic conserved in your body, until you're completely out, so that a simple turkey quill to quail quill may make the quill large enough so that you end up impaling yourself on it. Charms are less unpredictable than transfigurations. Again, do **not** practice any of the spells, even if it's only miming the motions, and you're sure that you're not thinking about the end process. I will take your wand, as well." Snape pulled a small bag with a drawstring out of his pants' pocket, and opened the opening in a circle two or three inches in diameter, dropping Harry's wand in, pulling the bag shut, and stashing the bag in his pocket again. "Believe me, Mr. Potter, your wand will be safer with me than with you, and you will not be tempted to perform any spells with it."

"What if I run out of books to read, Professor? What shall I do then?" Harry asked, resigned to his fate.

The professor thought for several seconds, before nodding, looking equally resigned. "I will not deprive you of human contact for two weeks, Potter. I will . . . fetch more books for you if you run out of them." Snape grimaced, before smirking. "In fact, I'll get a book right now. I believe the title is something along the lines of, The Outstanding Dangers of the Unintelligent Practice of Magic. I'll expect a thousand word essay on it."

Harry's eyes widened, and he gaped. "A thousand words? Do you want me to count them out?"

Snape cursed, and stalked over to where Harry had deposited his school supplies. "I had forgotten that you couldn't use your magic in your current state. Here, I'll enchant your paper with a word counter. . . ." His voice drifted off as he continued to look for the paper. He found it, stood up, and moved it from his right hand to his left. He quickly muttered a spell, and a deep blue light encompassed the paper. It concentrated in the upper right hand corner of the paper, and suddenly extended down through the pages. The light ceased to exist after a few seconds, leaving only a small box with a small zero in it. Snape cast another spell, this time with a pale blue effect, immediately striping the blank page, before extending. Again the light disappeared, leaving nothing but blue lines.

"Er, ah, well that solves that issue. About the other book . . . um . . . on the loopholes of the statutes?" Harry asked tentatively.

Snape nodded decisively, and his lips twitched upwards. "Good point, Potter. That one will be due two days after this one, same length. Honesty shouldn't go unrewarded."

Harry grinned, pleased at Snape's compliment, before yawning. He jerked his head back, and nervously bit lip, mumbling out apology after apology, but Snape waved them off. "It would in fact be best if you were to sleep now. It has been clinically proven that magic regenerates faster while the recipient of E.M.E. is asleep. If using it wouldn't prolong the illness, I would've used a Draught of Living Death on you." Seeing Harry's stricken look, Snape clarified, "It induces sleep so deep that it appears to be like Death. The Draught accelerates most natural healing, and can be used to **fake** a death very easily."

Harry nodded, barely managing to hold off the grip of sleep. He yawned again, and found a more comfortable position, before closing his eyes.

Snape nodded, before heading towards the bathroom. There were an extraordinary number of items to be leech-proofed, and he wanted to be done with them as soon as possible. Snape sighed, and thought of a time at which he would've laughed in the face of anyone who had suggested that he, heir of the Snape fortune would end up doing the tedious job of making another's child's room leech proof. _At least it isn't for a weakling, _he thought, _there's hope for this one yet._

**A/N Gah, spazzing. I'm way behind schedule on this, (I had hoped to have 3 new chapters done by now, and I have half a page) mostly because next week is midterms. Yes. Those dreaded things in which you have to remember stuff you learned three months ago. So I've been really busy in the last two weeks, as teachers crammed all of the random assignments they could think of into two weeks ago, and review into last week. However, midterms have finally come, and this week, I think I'll be able to get a lot of writing down. You reserve the right to throw various vegetables at me if I don't have a new chapter by next week.**

**On another note, here's the first really different stuff. The term EME is completely mine, and you get to see a little more magic. My magic is way flashier and awesome looking, which I'm rather proud of, and if anyone recognizes who Severus mentioned in his spell, then they'll have a clue as to where this story is going.** **Oh, right, and my Snape is pureblood.**


	4. For Knowledge is Power!

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Four

Harry woke up from his nap several hours later. He shifted around in his bed for a little while longer, before he decided that he couldn't possibly get back to sleep. Harry yawned, and pushed off each consecutive layer of covers slowly. When he finally got out, he realized that he had worn his clothes into bed, and then soon after, that they were severely rumpled. He moaned, began to pull them straight, when he heard a throat being cleared, and realized that he wasn't alone in the room.

"Pr-professor! I didn't realize you were still here!" Snape was absentmindedly zapping seemingly random items with his wand, covering them in a peculiarly iridescent film. Upon further inspection, his eyes seemed rather strange, the arteries strangely highlighted.

"Glad to know that I'm appreciated, Mr. Potter," Snape remarked dryly. "I've been leech proofing all of this since you fell asleep, which must've been . . ." Snape looked at his wrist, where a watch was resting on it, and after examining the watch for a few seconds, raised his head again and announced, "yes, three hours ago." He continued, obviously amused, "Don't worry, Mr. Potter, I'll soon be out of your way."

"I- no- I'm **very** sorry for falling asleep while you're still here, Professor." Harry said, flushing.

"No fear, Mr. Potter. You've made things much easier by doing so. I do believe that I'm nearly finished. Just these lamps, and the bed, that's all." Harry stood and quietly watched Snape coolly coat the lamps in the room. After that, he motioned for Harry to go towards the table, and in one swift motion levitated all of the layers of the bed into the air, and seemed to place them on an invisible clothes line, as they neatly folded themselves into two identical sides. He quickly zapped these items too, and then started on the bed frame. Once he was finished, he carefully brought the sheets, mattress, and blankets back to the bed, and poked his right, and then left eye with his wand. The peculiar colors in his eyes receded, and his eyes seemed normal again, if a little bloodshot.

Again the Professor reached into his sleeve, although this time he pulled out a brand new utilitarian knife, as opposed to the ceremonial one of before. He chanted a phrase in a harsh tongue, that reminded Harry of the noise of a freezing wind sweeping over Surrey, and Harry involuntarily shivered, getting goose bumps. Snape again cut his arm, but this time let the blood drop from his arm, towards the floor. About a foot away from the floor, it stopped, and zoomed off towards the far wall.

The Professor flicked his head once to the right, and then to the left, creating soft cracking noises, before deeply exhaling, and grabbing a chair from the table. "Sit down, Mr. Potter. You shouldn't feel compelled to remain terminally standing."

Harry quickly grabbed a chair and sloppily sat down, deeply impressed with this feat of magic. "Will I learn how to do that too, Professor?"

Snape nodded coolly, saying, "The levitation is first year charms, although it's unlikely that you'll be taught how to juggle multiple objects until second year. Preventing an object from stealing magic is simple, although tedious. However, it's not covered in a standard curriculum. It's a healer's charm, mostly." Snape paused, as if considering his words. "You will not learn the last charm unless you pursue Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Defense Against the Dark Arts and a little bit of . . . " again Snape paused, as if wondering whether to go on or not. "spell combination. Not the most useful branch of magic, although it has some uses, such as allowing me to swiftly redirect the leeching. Now it'll steal the magic from **my** blood, not yours, when it needs to."

"Mr. Potter," Snape started, "I will come back to see you tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, until you are better, most likely two weeks. Goodbye." With that, Snape turned towards the door, and began to walk out.

Harry, rather surprised, just stood there, dumbfounded, although he supposed that Snape had to leave sometime. Right before Snape walked out the door, he abruptly turned around again, before conjuring a letter, and floating it towards Harry. After a few seconds of surprise, Harry reached out and grabbed it. Upon seeing that Harry had the letter, Snape strode fully out of the room, and down the corridor, closing the door behind him as he went. Harry rushed out after him, only to find that he couldn't get the door open. He struggled with it for a few more seconds, before giving up, and sighing. He eyed the bed again, but opted instead for the desk, sitting down in the chair. He took the letter out of the envelope, and began to read.

_The door is locked, I do not wish for you to become victim to EME again from objects in the hall that aren't leech proofed. I will visit you tomorrow at precisely three thirty. By that time I expect you to have written a one thousand word report on the various dangers of the unintelligent use of magic, focusing on over extension of an inborn capacity to do magic and the exceptions to these rules. You can find__The Outstanding Dangers of the Unintelligent Practice of Magic__on the bookcase, I fetched it while you were sleeping._

Harry looked over, and there it was, a slim, red, hardcover book, next to an enormous blue dictionary. After reading perhaps a page of it, he closed the rather dry reading, and went back to the letter.

_The essay is to have a thesis paragraph, several body paragraphs, followed up by a conclusion paragraph, in which you tell the reader what the 'Moral of the story' is. Going back to the body paragraphs, each paragraph should have one overarching theme supported by three **specific examples**._ _So, "People sometimes get EME after being subjected to extreme temperatures" does **not** work, but _"_People are more likely to become affected by EME after being subjected to extreme temperatures such as in the case of Deborah the Fearsome's ill-fated hike across Antarctica."_ _If you have forgotten to buy some, there are pens on the table, and a whiter-out beside them._

_Make haste._

_Professor Severus Snape_

_P.S. I have explained to the hotel staff your condition. Any magical items sent to you have been leech proofed, and are safe._

Harry sighed, and decided to delay the reading of the book for a short time, maybe reading a bit of the other, less boring books. He got out Logical Magic, and began to read. Several hours, halfway through the book, he easily fell asleep, worn out by the day's events.

Snape sighed again, and slapped the essay back onto the table, scowling at Harry. Harry winced, and bit his lip as he hung his head, gazing intently at his knuckles. "What's this supposed to be again? An essay? It seems more like a fool's attempt to appear capable of participating in intelligent society. I see **no** specific examples, whatso_ever_." The professor exaggerated his last two syllables by smacking the table loudly. Directly afterwards, noticed Harry's wince, and where Harry's eyes were placed, and snapped loudly. "Potter! Look at me when I'm speaking to you!" Harry's eyes snapped towards his nose, with some amount of fear. "Well? What were you thinking?"

"Er, sir, I think that this, here, is an example . . . er . . . where it cites that EME generally causes symptoms that are painful . . ." Harry whispered nervously.

"Yes, yes, yes, that's an example, Potter, Very good." Snape said, in mock sweetness, before glaring at Harry intently. "But not specific. In the least. _Which_ symptoms are you thinking of? I have no idea, at all. _Tell me._ But not now. First of all. When did you wake up? And look into my eyes, so that I'll know if you're lying."

Harry locked eyes with Snape with much trepidation, and answered carefully, "Around ten o'clock." _Not a lie,_ he supposed, _8:45 is kind of around ten o'clock._

"Lie," Snape breathed. "When did you wake up?"

Harry swallowed, and softly replied, "Eight forty-five."

"Ah, so you had nearly seven hours to do this in." Snape reflected on this for several seconds, before asking another question. "What did you do when you woke up?"

Harry, not even bothering to lie, replied, "Took a shower, read Logical Magic."

"Mm, a noble task. I commend for it. Have you finished it?" Snape's frown broke a little, and Harry gave a small smile, taking it for a good sign.

"Yes, professor," Harry replied, with a little more courage.

"Then I'll bring you another book on Arithmancy in a few days. Now. Tell me. . . . When did you start Todotupom?"

"Er... sir? To... do... to..."

Snape interrupted impatiently, "The Outstanding Dangers of... oh, you know the rest. It's abbreviated as Todotupom. When did you start to read it?"

"Um, around 1 o'clock, sir?" Harry quietly said.

"Is that a response or a question, Potter?" Snape queried intently.

"A response," Harry responded firmly.

"Then say it as one," Snape commanded.

"Around one o'clock, sir," Harry repeated, although significantly more firmly.

Snape relaxed a bit, and smiled. "Very good, Potter. Now when did you finish it and start to write this crap?"

"Around two o'clock, sir," Harry responded firmly.

"In regards to your tone of voice, excellent. In regards to your study habits, horrendous." The professor sighed, before motioning for Harry to pull over a chair. "Come, we'll go over your essay." Harry nodded grimly, before sitting down.

"So," the professor continued, "Here, you even start out badly. A horribly weak thesis sentence. _This disease is a horrible thing that is easily preventable._" Snape shook his head, lips pursed, and asked Harry, "What disease? How is it preventable? **Speak more**, Mr. Potter."

Seeing that Snape was looking for a reply, Harry said softly, "Extreme Magical Exhaus-"

"What? I can't hear you. Say it with conviction."

Harry set his jaw, and said again, "Extreme Magical Exhaustion. Prevention techniques include knowing how far to push yourself, not using magical objects that you don't know how much they leech, and . . ." Harry inhaled slowly, before letting it out quickly. He looked Snape squarely in the eye, and stated, "I forget my last technique."

Snape nodded approvingly, before rebuking, "That's because your extremely vague thesis statement isn't even very accurate. Your third body paragraph ends up being about the upsides of Extreme Magical Exhaustion. But other than that, you seem to know what you're talking about. Let's see the second paragraph." Snape took a moment to find his spot on the page, before beginning again. "Good . . . knowing how far to push yourself . . . you mention learning it as you get older and use more and more magic, but you don't have any **specific examples**."

"But- sir- how could I possibly get a specific example for that?" Harry implored.

"Well, you could **quote** the book, as if I remember correctly, it has a few **pages** on it. Also, you're a little brief on the notion that this isn't foolproof, as while you're accustoming yourself to magic, you'll continue to grow in magical power, until you reach your threshold. Second example, yes, there are items that can tell you if you're in danger of suffering EME from casting a spell if you describe the spell to it, but you don't mention the name of these objects. You **have** got a name, haven't you?" Snape asked.

"Yes, er . . . they're called . . . core analyzers?" Harry guessed.

"Yes, but next time don't guess, say it like you know it, even if you don't."

"They're called core analyzers," Harry replied, a little more firmly.

"Are you sure?" Snape inquired again, his tone turning nasty.

Surprised at Snape's change in tone, Harry paused in his reply, before gathering himself, and replying with self assurance. "Yes, Professor. I'm sure."

The edges of Snape's lips tilted upwards, almost in a smile, and he handed the paper back to Harry. "Although I've been complaining about it for what must seem like hours, this isn't such a bad paper. I'd probably give it a Dreadful if it were in my class," Harry cringed, but Snape continued on blithely, "But you're not in my class, and you won't be in my class for another five years. I teach the NEWT Potions classes, and quite honestly, you won't be required to write this kind of a paper overnight until then. In a first year class, with no real explanation of how an essay should go, this would most likely be at least an Exceeds Expectations, bordering on Outstanding."

Harry, rather astonished, sat stunned for a moment, before grinning, and looking Snape in the eye. "Thanks, Professor!"

Snape lost his almost-smile, and gave Harry an icy look. "However, just because it's a decent essay for a first try doesn't mean that you can get away with doing my work at the last moment." He pulled out the bag that he had put Harry's wand in, and reached around in it, putting his arm in much farther than physics should've allowed, before pulling out a stack of papers. "I have underlined the sections pertinent to your essay. You will have finished reading it by tomorrow." Snape stood up, and asked Harry, who was still awkwardly maneuvering out of his chair, which he had pushed far too close to the table, "What books do you want?"

"What?" Harry asked, caught by surprise. Seeing the beginnings of a glare on Snape's face, he hastily added, "Sir."

"Well, I told you that I'd get you some books in Diagon Alley, didn't I? Come across anything in your reading that interests you?" Snape asked, clearly impatient.

"Er, well, sir, you mentioned . . . Spell Combination yesterday?" Harry questioningly stated.

Snape grimaced, and looked away, as if embarrassed. "It's a useless art, Potter, and nearly lost now, as it's relatively pointless. However, if you must have it, I shall obtain it for you. Now-"

"Thank you sir," Harry interrupted brightly.

"I don't know why you're thanking me for getting you a useless book." For some reason, Harry could've sworn that he saw a glint of happiness in Snape's eyes, but he must've been mistaken, as his words clearly refuted it. "Now, do you have any other, 'Last Requests'?"

Harry smiled, before nervously wetting his lips, and beginning, "Um, sir, do you . . . well . . . I don't suppose you knew my parents?"

Snape grimaced, before nodding. "Yes, you can suppose that I did."

Harry's eyes grew wide, and he excitedly asked, "Do you have any pictures of them?"

Snape looked at the wall, and pursed his lips. "Your parents were notorious for their dislike of photographs." At Harry's downcast expression, he continued, albeit hesitantly. "However," at Harry's look of hope, he smirked, and continued, more strongly. "I believe that I'm in possession of a group photo that they were roped into by the Headmaster."

At this, Harry's outright grinned, and placing his hands behind his back, he leaned back, and exclaimed, "Thank you! That'd be great!"

Snape's smirk grew, and he tilted his very slightly to the side. "Well, you must've done something other than neglect my essay yesterday," he began, pausing to allow his smirk to grow a little more when Harry looked guiltily to the side, before continuing. "So tell me what you've been up to within the last 24 hours."

Harry's face lit up, and he began to lean forward slightly. "Well, I was reading this brilliant book, called logical magic. It explained how with just a simple spell like the wand-light charm, one could light an area with a radius of up to one hundred meters- one hundred meters!" Harry repeated, clearly in awe, "Provided you use eleven of the spells at exactly thirteen centimeters away from each other, because eleven is light, and thirteen is wand! How brilliant is that!"

Snape nodded thoughtfully, and informed Harry, "Yes, Arithmancy is typically used with larger magical workings, as it significantly cuts down on the amount of power needed. However, it's safer to not use distance Arithmancy." Seeing Harry's confused expression, he clarified, "Distance Arithmancy uses the distance between the spells to amplify the spell. It's also notoriously finicky. If it's off by more than the reciprocal of the number you're using in centimeters, then it doesn't work." Harry's mouth slowly curved into the shape of an 'O' in surprise. "Most people just use pure numeric Arithmancy, which in this case would be casting, ah . . . Eleven by thirteen . . . one less than twelve squared," Snape thought out loud, "143 times. Which takes longer than just casting eleven of the light spells, but it has a 100 percent rate of success."

Snape was silent for a little while, before abruptly demanding, "Well, any questions about Arithmancy?"

Harry, getting used to Snape's rather brusque form of speaking, barely flinched at all, before shooting, "What would happen if you cast two elevens, 121, light spells?"

"Well," Snape responded, "If you're referring to the wand-light spell, then it wouldn't work, because you're not taking the wand, or more accurately, focus, into account. But if you mean the light spell," Snape raised his voice at the end of the sentence, posing a question.

"I do." Harry answered.

"If you mean the light spell, then it would square the effect. So assuming that the eleven light spells extended it to a sphere radius of 1000, not because it would but because it's an easy number to work with in this case, you'd multiply the length radius by 10."

Harry peered over his glasses at Snape, as if trying to figure out whether he was kidding or not. "But, if you're squaring the effect, then you have to multiply it by itself, right? So it would be by a factor of 10. . . ."

Snape shook his head, and replied, "The effect in cubic meters, Potter. The formula for the volume of a sphere is four thirds pi r **cubed**, so if you want to square the sphere, you have to find the cube root of the initial radius."

Harry thought that over for a little while, before his mouth again curved into an 'O', this time one of comprehension. "Wicked," he breathed.

"Any other questions?" Snape queried.

"Er, no." Harry took a deep breath, and began to ramble, loudly. "The book was mostly on why the different numbers work with different items, and the ways that numbers can be substituted if you aren't sure of what number the item is, and why it can only work with prime-"

"Yes, I'm familiar with the book, I've read it several times myself." Snape interrupted, with a slightly bored look on his face.

His face red, Harry continued, with a softer tone. "Yeah, the book doesn't really leave any loose ends. But . . . " Harry's wrung his hands, and bent his head so that he was staring directly at his nervously bouncing knee. "Er, Professor Snape, _why_ are you assigning me work, and visiting me, and helping me?"

Snape seemed to think for a while, replacing his smirk with a thoughtful expression, before putting out a fist, and sticking up one finger. "First of all, the Headmaster is giving me a large sum of money to make sure that you don't die." He stuck out another finger, and continued. "I owe your mother a debt, and I know that she wished for you to become knowledgeable, and to go to Hogwarts. You can only go to Hogwarts if you're not an idiot, so I had resolved to turn you away from that path if you had become an idiot, but seeing as you're clearly not, I'll teach you instead." Snape stuck up a third finger, "And third of all, I personally owe you rather a lot for ridding us of The Dark Lord."

Harry was silent for a little while, contemplating this, and then Snape stood up, and pushed his chair in. "Well, assuming you have no more questions," he stopped, waiting for Harry to respond. He did, with a quick shake of the head, "Then I'll be going. Good day, Mr. Potter, and I do hope that you do your homework properly this time." He took a few steps towards the door, before glancing to his side, and whispering just loudly enough for Harry to hear, "Don't try to just skim it over, either. I'll _know_." The Professor took a few more long strides, and was gone.

The hairs on the back of Harry's neck raised, and he shivered, before reaching immediately for the papers that Snape had left. He'd make sure to read them each _twice_, this time.

The next morning, he woke up, and began to go over the best points that the papers had brought up, which were really just that, A, if there are loopholes you should take advantage of them, because if they haven't been closed yet, then someone is keeping them open, most likely, and if that person is benefitting from the loopholes, then why shouldn't you, B, the laws state that when a child is emancipated, then they're technically their own guardian, and if the guardian of the magical child is magical, then they can decide the punishment for their child, and C, the enchantments detecting magic can't pinpoint the person, and so owls are only sent out if there's a known magical child with known muggle guardians. So really, it's only applicable for muggleborns.

Harry rolled out of bed, taking his covers with him, and lay on the floor for a little while, not willing to get out of the warm covers just yet. Eventually, he crawled out of the covers, and put on his Hogwarts uniform, not having anything but that to wear, and pulled out a random book, before looking at the cover. One Thousand Herbs and Fungi. Wonderful. He sighed, but realizing that he'd have to use it eventually, he started to read it.

Snape came at the same time that he had come the day before, at around three thirty, and greatly surprised Harry who was at the time reading about the many wonders of Carniflora, created by some distant relative of his while trying to see what would happen if he conjured a tiger and a tiger lily into the same space. Needless to say, it was only _assumed_ that he had created it, as it is entirely possible that it had merely already been there, created by someone else, as all that was found of poor William Potter was a knobby kneecap. "When did **you** get here, Professor?"

"Several minutes ago, Mr. Potter. But as you're so engrossed in your book. . . ." Snape's voice began to trail off, sadly.

"I- wait- no. Professor, I can read that later." Harry quickly dog-eared the page, and closed the book, turning to face Snape.

Snape smirked again, and pulled out an old piece of paper, slightly yellowed around the edges, and held it in front of his face for a few seconds, before putting it back in his bag. "I've found the picture, and after, and **only** after you've proved to my satisfaction that you've read the papers I gave you well, can you look at it."

Harry nodded happily, and quickly began to explain to Snape exactly how he was going to write **this** paper, and how he was sure that he had all of the best points, and what those points were, before Snape finally stopped him, and told him to write an outline. "Write down your thesis statement, and then write three topic sentences. Underneath those topic sentences, write three specific examples for each."

Harry set to it, scribbling words madly, but grimaced after he got to his last topic. "Professor, I can't think of any specific examples beyond that magical signatures are too complex to keep everyone's magical signature on record, and that schools have to log where their muggleborn students live with the Ministry, and during what seasons they should be home."

Professor Snape looked at Harry with a somewhat disappointed look. Think, Potter. How do you know that it's only for muggleborns? Was there... a _case_ maybe?"

A look of comprehension dawned on Harry's face, and he flushed with embarrassment. "Of course, the muggle attorney, Stephan v. Bureau of Illegal Spellwork." He quickly added it to the paper, before handing it to Snape for inspection. Snape quickly read over Harry's somewhat messy handwriting, before handing it back, and nodding. "Good work, Mr. Potter. If your essay is this good, I think that I'd have to give you an O, given the limited materials you're working with."

Harry flushed with pride, and then said, "Well then, will you please lemme see them?" He asked eagerly.

Snape's seemed to almost grin, before wiping his face of emotion, and carefully putting the picture on the table, and taking out his wand. "They're probably hiding, so I'll have to shove over the other people who're blocking their faces. Don't worry, this won't hurt them." He delicately pushed his wand into the picture, and suddenly, there was a floating tree in the picture, and people were fleeing one way and another, to the skirts of the picture. Snape grimaced, and removed his wand, before trying it again. It failed once more, but he set his jaw, and resolutely kept on poking it, until he exclaimed, "Ah! I think I must've seen them. Look closely now, Mr. Potter."

Harry peered intently at the picture as the Professor poked it with his wand. _That flash of wavy hair. Was that her? No, he would've said. _He stared so hard that his eyes began to hurt, and he blinked very quickly several times after realizing that he hadn't blinked for at least thirty seconds.

Suddenly, just as his eyes were beginning to water again, Snape whispered in his ear, "There," and Harry saw. With black curly hair, just like his, James Potter was sprinting as quickly as possible to the other side of the picture, without looking to either side, quickly followed by Lily Potter, nee Evans, who followed him to the huddle of people on the other side of the photo. Harry was disappointed to realize that all he could really see of either of them were well made black robes, and their hair, and was about to turn away, when Lily suddenly stuck her face out of the huddle. He gazed at her deep green eyes, her aquiline nose, and slightly cleft chin, and was amazed by how strikingly attractive she must've been in life, before she winked at him, and he promptly fainted.

He slowly came to, to the sweet sound of, "Bloody hell, wake up, Potter! Damn." Snape managed to put enough venom and irritation in the word to make it sound as if it were a much worse word, and Harry laughed, albeit weakly. He wondered why he was on the floor, and feeling himself regaining energy, he managed to push himself up, a little. "You're awake!" Snape exclaimed, clearly relieved. "Did you experience EME again? I though I had leech proofed the photo, but I guess not. . . ." Snape worried.

"Don't worry professor, it wasn't painful. It was just that one second, I saw Lily, and then I was on the floor, feeling a little weak." He struggled to his feet, and then had to sit in a chair quickly, so that he didn't fall to the floor. He fell onto the table, still rather surprised with how weak he was feeling, before instantly noticing what was missing. "Where's the photo, Professor?" he panted.

"I have put it back into my bag. I didn't think it safe for it to be close to you until after you had gotten over your EME. . . . Although you say that it wasn't painful, so perhaps there was a curse on the photo for specific people. Hmm. I'll have to look into it, check the various spells on it to see if there's anything unusual . . . it didn't have any effect on you until after a few seconds, right?" Snape thought out loud.

"Er, no," Harry replied. "Not until after Lily winked at us."

Snape frowned, and thought for a while. "I don't think that photos do that very often. I'll see if there's a curse attached to her in the photo. Anyways, in the interim, I don't think that you should come in contact with it."

Harry nodded, albeit reluctantly, and sighed. "I wish I had gotten to see them a little more . . . but this is for the best, right?" Snape nodded slowly, and Harry sighed again.

"Well, in other news, I got you a book on combining magic. Hmm . . . Why Anyone Would Ever Possibly Wish To Combine Spells and How, by Rayliam Black-Morrison. And . . . some more theory on Arithmancy." Snape set the books on the table, and Harry, feeling like he had gathered most of his strength back, picked up the books and set them on the book shelf.

"Sorry Professor, but I feel the most interested in Charms right now." Harry smiled a kind of lilting smile that Snape hadn't seen before. He suspected that this was Harry at his cheekiest.

Snape arched an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Over the next week, Harry grew increasingly cheeky, and increasingly interested in Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts. This was somewhat puzzling to Snape, who speculated that it might have had something to do with the fainting spell, but couldn't find any malicious spells on the photograph whatsoever. Eventually, he just decided that it must be because Harry was getting used to a non-abusive environment, and that if he hadn't been submitted to that, he would have been like this the whole time. He wasn't unpleasant at all, and still very intelligent, very polite, and very hard working, perhaps even a little less of a procrastinator than before.

"Please, Professor Snape. I believe that my legs are beginning to atrophy! Just a little, up and down the stairs." Snape grimaced, and wished that he was anywhere other than here for the moment. Not so much because the 'New Harry's' company was so abhorrent, but because stronger men would've cringed if they could hear him whining for hours on end.

"Bloody hell Potter, _okay_. Just give me a few minutes to make sure everything is leech proof–"

"Professor, I thought you said that items only borrowed magic at midnight," Harry interrupted.

"Typically. Typically. Better safe than sorry. Some items take magic randomly. Now shut up and read a book or something," Snape ordered. Harry happily obeyed, glad that he had won the battle.

Several minutes later, Snape walked back in, significantly more sedately than he had left, and beckoned for Harry to walk outside the room, to a long carpeted hallway. "There are some stairs to your right," he said as he pointed towards them. "You will run up and down them as many times as you can until you are completely tired out, at which point you will run up and down them one more time, before you return. Do not get off at any of the other landings. If you encounter another patron, keep to the left, and do not draw attention to yourself." He seemed to grow a little taller as he began his last words, as if to impress upon Harry the importance of his words, "It would not do well if one of the old supporters of the Dark Lord were to realize that his defeater was without any sort of magic."

Harry nodded, a little scared, although also a little rebellious. "Why do you have to phrase everything as an order?"

"How else would I phrase it, Potter?" Snape asked. His voice seemed to have an edge to it, but Harry ignored it.

"Er... a little nicer, perhaps, Professor." Harry replied, brightly.

"No."

"I- er. Ah. Okay. I'll just be going now, eh?" Harry said gamely, quite obviously trying to get away from the tension that Snape's monosyllabic response had instantly created in the room.

"Yes."

"Er, right." he began to quickly edge towards the stairs, futilely trying to redirect Snape's stare. "Sir. Right, sir. I mean." He reached the stairs, and just began to run up and down, trying to put the simple, yet unnerving conversation out of mind.

Snape just relaxed in the room for a while, sure that Harry wouldn't disobey him. He supposed that he wasn't that bad a kid, for all that he was spawn of Potter, and that he was raised by abominable muggles. He grinned. "Nature versus nurture, my arse," he muttered. Although that did raise the question of how he became such a not-bastard. But that was a question for another time– Harry had been out there for a while, and Snape had might as well check up on him.

He walked down the carpeted hall, almost wishing that he was a child, so that he could throw off his shoes and let his toes relish the inch-thick, sweet softness of the carpet. This place was a pretty nice hotel, after all. However, he reminded himself, he wasn't at Hogwarts anymore. He was teaching there, and he had been for eleven years. He briefly wondered what it would be like to teach Harry, hypothetically, if he decided to take the potions NEWT course. Of course, all of this was banished from his mind, as he turned to the staircase, and saw a sweaty and nasty Harry Potter, jogging up the stairs, for all the world as if it was the hardest thing he had ever done. He looked at his watch, realized that twenty minutes had passed since he had given his order, and then shortly afterwards, realized that Harry must've followed his instructions, word for word.

He came dangerously close to twitching in irritation, but didn't, because Snapes don't twitch.

As Harry came puffing up the stairs, Snape didn't move, so that Harry wouldn't be able to pass by him, and glared at the top of Harry's head. When Harry finally got to the top of the stairs, he abruptly noticed Snape's robes, and looked up at Snape's face, looking genuinely happy. "Professor! I ran up and down for a while, before I was completely tired out, and then I remembered what you had said at the end, so I got up again and ran up and down a fifteenth time!"

Snape glared back at Harry's smiling face. "I didn't think that you'd actually drive yourself to the point of exhaustion, especially while you were still affected by EME. Haven't you noticed how you've had to get more sleep in the past week?"

Harry scratched the back of his head, and his smile fading, he defensively began to babble. "I, er, well, I've run a lot more than just this, from while I was running away from my cousin and his friends, and besides, I haven't really noticed being tired after the first–" Harry's ramble was instantly cut off, when he tried to step back from Snape, forgetting that there wasn't anything for him to stand on there. "Oh, cra–"

Snape quickly tried to grab Harry, to keep him from falling, but it was in vain. Harry tumbled backwards, head over heels, down what seemed to be an invisible ramp, right above the stairs, until he was safely transported to the cushy landing below.

Snape, stunned, didn't say anything, his body deciding for him, to simply gape. Harry, similarly affect, decided to just lie there. Finally, Snape snapped out of it. "Mr. Potter, you seem to be a medical marvel. Did you know that no one, in documented history, has _ever_ recovered from EME before two weeks? That was regarded as one of the fundamental rules of healing. Two weeks of EME, then you're good." He looked down at Harry suspiciously, before asking, "Are you using a time turner?"

"A what?" Harry asked in return.

Snape shook his head, and put out a foot, to make sure that the ramp was gone, before walking down the stairs to Harry as serenely as possible.

"Come, Potter, you never mention this, I never mention this, and millions of textbooks don't have to be rewritten. Just remember that you can do magic after you stop feeling exhausted, and don't let on that you're special in any way, shape or form, Mr. Potter."

Harry arched an eyebrow, and asked, quite simply, "Why?"

"Use your head, Potter. Which you could lose if you don't think of the ramifications of drawing attention to yourself," Snape sneered.

"I . . . what?" Harry exclaimed, as if it had taken a few seconds for what Snape had said to sink into his mind.

"Your few enemies who know who you are let you live for now, because they figure that your defeat of the Dark Lord was pure luck. If suddenly, they see in the Prophet, 'Medical Marvel, Boy-Who-Lived', that's what they'd call you, you know, they're going to wonder if maybe they should dispose of you." As he was saying this, Snape began to pace, back and forth, on the landing. "No one could possibly realize anything, unless they had aural and visual spying devices, and since those are completely different areas of expertise, that's doubtful." Suddenly, Snape spun towards Harry, and nodded decisively. "We're going back to the room. I can teach you a few spells, now that your EME has passed, and you know some basic theory. It's no use worrying about that crap right now." Snape's lips curled into an almost-smile, and began to walk up the stairs. Harry, apparently getting his second wind, swiftly followed.

Once they had returned to their room, Snape waved his wand around, in a circle in the air, and all of the glistening leech-proofing disappeared. To Harry's stunned expression, he simply replied, "Destruction is much easier than creation." He then gestured towards the door, which slammed itself shut, slightly startling Harry. He then reached into his right sleeve with his left hand, and withdrew the bag that Harry had seen before, before loosening the drawstrings, and pulling out Harry's wand. Harry, almost reverently, took the wand from Snape, and then just stood there, holding it. After a couple of seconds, he began to feel kind of stupid, but Snape saved him from embarrassment by beginning to do something peculiar with his wand.

"I believe that you muggles have a nursery rhyme. You might be familiar with it. It goes like this." Snape muttered a spell, and began to draw green letters in the air with the tip of his wand, until a sentence was spelled out. It read, in eerie floating green letters, 'Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.' "Do you understand?" Snape asked.

"Understand what?" Harry answered.

"The incantation for the dancing fire charm, of course," Snape replied impatiently.

Harry perked up at the sound of this, because he had read a little about the great use it had in controlling various species of darkness loving fauna. He looked at it intently for a couple of seconds, before exclaiming, "Jack! It's Jack!"

Snape curled up the edges of his lips again, before slashing diagonally down to his right with his wand. Harry watched in awe as the C's in Jack disappeared, leaving each one as Jak. "Correct. This is how the wizarding version goes. Now do you remember standard procedure for figuring out what the wand movement of a spell is?"

"Yeah, I just need to think of how they would've done fire when this spell was made. Er... and this rhyme is pretty old, I guess?" Harry queried.

"Yes. It dates back hundreds of years," Snape answered.

"Then . . . flint and steel, or a torch," Harry stated.

"Very good, Mr. Potter. Can you decide which would work best for this spell?" Snape prompted.

Harry pondered it for a second, before shaking his head no.

"Well, put it this way. If you wanted a flame that wasn't going to be touching you, then what would you use?" Snape gave a hint, reminding himself that Harry was still young.

"Flint and steel, of course!" Harry exclaimed. Snape nodded, and Harry thought of fire, of its many layers, of its uncontrollable, incorrigible dancing. He thought of all of this, said, "_Jak_," firmly, and poked his wand forward, imagining as if he were using flint and steel. Nothing happened.

"Did you remember the cleansing property of fire? And throw in a memory of any dancers you've ever seen. That might help too," Snape remarked.

Harry nodded, and tried again, this time remembering how cleansing fire could be, of how wonderful it felt to toss his castoff hand-me-downs from Dudley into the fire. '_Jak_' sprang to life, and Harry grinned as he controlled it with clumsy wand movements. Snape nodded, approvingly, before setting his jaw, and casting the dancing fire charm himself. His, however, was a much larger ball of fire than Harry's, and he directed it with deft and practiced wand movements towards Harry's, where it easily consumed the fire, stealing away Harry's ball.

"Hey," Harry exclaimed. "That's not fair!"

Snape nodded, before dispelling his own charm. "No, it's not. But you're going to learn how to do that too. See, here's how you make it larger, and the reason that your ball is moving so slowly is because your movements are clumsy and indecisive. Fire needs to be. . . ."

Harry began to feel himself getting lost in the learning, and grinned, glad to finally be learning magic. It truly_ was_ going to be excellent to be a wizard.

A/N: Holy crap. This should've been up around two months ago. Sorry guys. I promised myself and everyone else that I'd have an update up every week, but I was just lying. I'm really sorry. I'll try to do better next time (I've completely cut myself off from three crappy rpgs that I got involved in) but no promises, now. Whew. What a monstrosity. This isn't very long for a lot of writers, but for me, it's twelve pages in wordperfect.


	5. In 'Train'ing

Wit of the Raven

Chapter 5

Harry lugged his trunk down the stairs and out the door at five o'clock in the evening, smiling nervously at the attractive concierge, who after he asked, pointed him in the direction of the front door. He murmured his thanks, and hurried out the door, looking around Diagon Alley desperately for the portkeys that were taking him and his classmates to Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

Harry had overslept a little bit this morning, kept asleep by the long battery of tests that Snape had put him through the day before, with some kind of physical examination, and also by a wonderful dream, which was already fading from his memory. He _knew_ not to mention it to anyone. He tried to recall it, but all he could remember was the fleeting image of pale skin and wonderful eyes. He supposed it was enough.

He had gone exploring Diagon Alley with Snape, and so was relatively familiar with it, and noticed that there seemed to be a peculiar pattern of people moving towards Gambol and Japes, so he decided to go with the flow, and hope that it led to the portkeys. It turned out that luck was on his side, and within moments, he was standing in a large crowd of mothers, fathers, and children. He felt a twinge of regret that he didn't have a mother or father, but felt a little better when he noticed how uncomfortable all of the other kids looked.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and after he whirled around, was met by a grinning face. "Hogwarts too? Well I suppose you'd have to be." He nudged past a few people who were between Harry and himself, and extended his hand. "Terry Boot. And you?"

Harry grinned, and shook Terry's hand. "Harry Potter. Are you a first year too?" He _knew_ to be courteous and kind.

Terry nodded, happily, before looking thoughtful. "Potter . . . I feel like I've heard the name before . . . is the Potter line enchanters?" Terry asked.

"Nope, we used to be herbologists, recently we've been Hunters." Snape had explained to Harry that although in Britain, the government employed ones were called aurors, the universal term was Hunter.

Terry's eyes gleamed, and he breathed, "Wicked. . . . I've always wanted to meet a hunter. I've heard they're all bloody insane." Seeming to belatedly remember who he was talking to, he added, "Not that your parents are. Don't suppose you could introduce me to your dad?"

Harry shook his head ruefully. "He's dead. You'd have to be a necromancer."

Terry, shocked, took a step back, treading on someone's foot. "Oh shit. I'm really sorry, Harry. . . ."

Harry shook his head again, smiling a little. "It's okay, you couldn't have known. Besides, I can't remember. I just know what other people have told me." He cocked his head to the side, and asked Terry, "So what are Boots? Enchanters?"

Terry nodded happily, seeming to forget his earlier faux pas, and launched into an explanation. "Boots have always been Enchanters. Always. The first recorded Boot enchanted a boot that could go a league in one step– maybe you've heard of it?" Terry asked, hopefully.

Harry nodded, albeit a little unsurely. "Um . . . seven league boots?"

Terry nodded back, happily. "His son made that improvement. That's like eighteen generations back or–" Suddenly, Terry was cut off by the sound of a klaxon.

Soon after, they were surrounded by a peculiar sound, that seemed to be coming from all around them. "_All who are traveling to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, please grab hold of a portkey. No more than ninety-five to a portkey, please_. _Thank you, and have a nice day._"

Harry heard a peculiar mechanical sound, and saw what had seemed like spheres earlier, extending ten arms, parallel to the ground. The crowd made way as the arms grew to a length of around seven meters, before they surged in again, all trying to grab a place on one of the arms. He looked around for Terry for a little while, before deciding that Terry must've gone off with his family. He managed to wrap his arm around the middle of an arm, and was rather surprised when around a minute later, he felt the peculiar sensation of being squeezed inside of the arm, through where he was touching it, and then seconds later, back out. This time, when he came out, he was in the middle of an ancient train station, standing near the humongous red train that seemed to be the centerpiece of the beautiful room.

Harry groaned as he hefted his trunk, which Snape had conjured and enlarged for him the day before. Snape had informed him that it would disappear within three days of conjuration, and that he'd have to obtain a trunk for himself by the end of the year, somehow, or else carry all of his stuff in his hands. He _knew_ he should do it early. He'd decided to look to see if there was any way to lighten the weight of the trunk, as it was killing his hands, before he struck himself on the forehead. Obviously, the levitation charm would do the trick. "_Trunksardium Leviosa_," he whispered, raising the tip of his wand minutely, and thinking of how wonderful it felt to jump, to be light as air, to not be restrained by gravity, and the trunk, jumped up after a long moment. Harry gave it a smug look, and sitting on it, maneuvered it and himself towards one of the entrances to the train, flying carpet style.

As he approached the entrance, he waited patiently on his trunk for the large group of red heads to finish passing through. He heard snippets of the conversation, and grinned, closing his eyes to hear better.

" . . . something on your nose, Charlie, you don't want to look bad for your lady friends, do you, Char-. . . "

" . . . no Mrs. Norris won't notice if we dye her blue. Cats are predatory, so their eyes face forward. And I think they might be color-blind, too."

"Right, right, zebras don't change their stripes. Have you been working on your magic . . ."

" . . . . mum, I have to go, there's a . . . meeting . . . the new . . . "

" . . . so many times . . . burnout over a summer . . . I wanted . . . quidditch . . ."

As their voices faded out, Harry opened his eyes, only to be faced with a small girl around the same size as him, with freckles, peering intently at his face, her face around eight centimeters away. She closed her eyes, and he was struck by the most peculiar sensation of need, and he reached his hand out, slowly, to touch to her face, as if controlled by an outside force. Abruptly, she opened her eyes, and shrieked at the sight of his hand coming towards her face. At the sight of her eyes, he jerked his hand back, and with his other hand, jerked the trunk backwards. He turned his trunk around, took one last glance at her fearful eyes, and ignoring the peculiar glances he was getting from the surround populace, zoomed above the crowd to near the top of the station, to find a less crowded entrance.

He found his entrance at the front of the train, and floated in, on his trunk. He moved down the corridor, and opened the first door on his right, labeled, "Professor Randy Orthop," to be confronted with four pairs of steely eyes, staring right at him. He murmured his apologies, and quickly removed himself from the room, and looked for a compartment with open seats. Harry had to look through five more nearly identical compartments, with four inhabitants with icy eyes, before he found an empty one, labeled, "Nathaniel Uben Biggs". He quickly got off his trunk, walked inside, and dropped the charm on his trunk, panting slightly. He hadn't lifted anything heavier than a lamp while practicing with Snape, and wasn't too surprised that lifting so much had taken its toll. Opening the trunk, he pulled out Miranda Goshawk's book, levitated his trunk onto the trunk rack, and began leafing through it for interesting charm.

He was rather surprised when he saw a pair of identical, somewhat attractive girls walked casually in, balancing each of their trunks on a finger. They smiled slightly when they saw him the one on the right first, and then the one on the left, before they both tossed their trunks up onto the racks, as if they weighed nothing, which they probably did, before casting "_Finite_" simultaneously on their trunks. They turned, and curtsied slightly, before cheerily informing Potter, "We're Patil twins."

"Parvati Patil," one began.

"And Padma Patil," the other finished.

He responded, "Harry Potter," and they nodded too, before taking the seats across from him, and beginning to chatter excitedly.

Several minutes later, a boy walked in, panting and dragging his trunk behind him. The boy looked up, saw Harry, nodded, and began to try to lift his trunk up to the trunk rack. Harry cast the levitation charm for him, and surprised the boy slightly when the trunk moved by itself onto the rack. He whirled around, saw Harry's wand, and nodded again, in thanks.

"Would've done it myself, but Longbottoms prefer water. That's all I've learned since my birthday." His nodded again, and stated, "Neville Longbottom."

Harry nodded back, "Harry Potter."

Neville's eyes widened, and he sat down next to Harry quickly, and intensely whispered in his ear, "Je te souviens."

Harry turned to Neville's intense gaze, and arching an eyebrow, whispered back, "What?"

Neville, taken aback, whispered again, this time a little louder, "Je te souviens."

"Um, yeah, I don't speak French," Harry replied, a little nervously. He _knew_ to be courageous, but he couldn't feel it, in truth.

This time, Neville, really taken aback, inquired loudly, "You don't know? Well, it's bastardized French, because je me souviens de toi just doesn't have the same ring, but. . . ."

Harry slowly shook his head, and Neville's eyes seemed to widen until they took up around an equal amount of space on his face as his forehead. Seeing the Patil twins as if for the first time, who were now looking at the two of them, slightly interested, he shook his head, and told Harry, "I'll tell you later, in private." He looked at the twins again, did a double take, and muttered, "Good god, Patil twins."

Harry, understandably confused, asked, "What?"

They smirked, and Padma responded, "I'm surprised you haven't heard of us, Potter. Patils are **always** twins, and are always even twins. I was born second, and will be the potions mistress, and Parvati was born first, and will be the enchantress."

"Even twins? And what if you don't want to be a potions mistress?" Harry asked.

"Ugh, you really don't know anything. Even twins are twins that have equal magical force. And I **do **want to be an enchantress. The blood assures it," Parvati answered. "What have the Potters been doing since you were born? I'm surprised you even got into Hogwarts. . . . Unless you're a muggleborn Potter, which I suppose is possible . . . " she pondered.

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Neville got there before him. "Mr. Potter is head of House Potter, and acting head of House Evans. Apologize for maligning the dead," he said angrily, standing up and drawing his wand.

"No, Neville, it's okay, I don't mind–" Harry tried to soothe the irate Longbottom, who shook his head, and kept on pointing his wand.

"House Potter and House Longbottom are allied. Didn't I tell you?" He dropped his voice again, and breathed, "Je te souviens."

The twins, eyes wide, apologized quickly. "We didn't realize, Potter. Our apologies," Padma whispered.

Harry, kind of freaked out, shook his head quickly, muttering that it wasn't needed, and Neville sat down and put away his wand, satisfied. "Er, I'm so ignorant about, say, why you'd be an enchantress, why Neville wanted you to apologize, and stuff like that because I've been raised by muggles all my life."

Neville hissed, and turned abruptly to Harry, clearly horrified. "What? How could they be assured that you got into Hogwarts?"

"Hmm? I assume that my parents signed me up for it," Harry replied calmly.

Padma, perhaps more horrified than Neville now, hissed too, quickly drawing air into her mouth between pursed lips. "No, Harry, Hogwarts is highly selective. It's considered the best wizarding school in Britain for a reason. There are Wizarding colleges for after your seven years in regular school. They last for four years, and teach the same things that Hogwarts does in its last two years. You wouldn't have been able to get into Hogwarts if you weren't brilliant. It's not uncommon for parents to spend thousands of galleons on one child to assure that that one child will get into Hogwarts. And it's even tougher to get in if you're muggleborn, because Hogwarts doesn't want to spend time explaining Wizarding customs to you. You have to be able to pick it up on your own. You might've noticed someone who you didn't recognize around you a few days before you received your letter?"

Harry thought back, and not remembering anyone like that, shook his head slowly. "Oh, right, the professor mentioned something about Hogwarts not accepting idiots, I think," Harry said slowly, as if measuring every word. Parvati copied her sister's hiss, and angrily began to move her hands, looking intensely at Padma, who began to make the same spasmodic hand signals.

"And this is part of why you should fear the Patil twins," Neville breathed to Harry, "They practically have a twin-link, without the nasty side effect of all of the magic leaning to one or the other. That's called Linked Twins. It's as if they're conjoined twins, joined through magic. These are Even Twins, which are far more common. Except that they're raised to be thicker than thieves, and they have those bloody hand signals. And that's only the beginning. There was a man who made it his life goal to figure out how to understand the sign language, and after years of studying pensieve memories of people who had interacted with Patil twins, he managed to decipher it. But when he tried to tell someone else the secret, he found that he was incapable of doing so. The language itself has a bloody modified fidelius."

"Pensieve? Fidelius?" Harry asked, feeling increasingly bewildered.

"A pensieve lets you view other people's memories. Fidelius is an ancient charm that prevents you from telling anyone else the location of something, unless you're the secret keeper," Neville informed Harry, still glancing every few seconds at the twins, as if they were serial killers and he and Harry were in horrible danger of dying a gruesome death.

"And what's the other reason why I should fear the Patil twins?" Harry wondered.

"There are two. The first is that potions and enchantments are a wicked mix. Imagine a poison that smells like mangos, a draught of living death, enchanted to resemble an apple?" Neville shivered, before continuing. "And the second is that when they're adults, they're bloody hot until the day they die. Great uncle Algie tells me that that's the worst of their abilities."

Harry jerked back, surprised, and a little amused. "What? Oh dear, I've fallen in love with a woman. Whatever am I to do?"

"Don't be absurd, Potter. Love is the most dangerous emotion, didn't the muggles tell you that?" Neville responded, angrily.

Harry laughed again, this time loudly, and a little incredulously. "You're the one who's being absurd. The muggles teach that love is to be valued. It's viable in an evolutionary respect in that it cuts down on the amount of abuse suffered, which in turn creates stronger humans, and humans that have a strong family base to fall back on in case they get knocked down. It's viable in an emotional respect in that it's a wonderful feeling. The only downside the pain caused by a betrayal of that love."

Neville was openly staring now, his mouth slightly agape. "I . . . I was sure that muggles taught the dangers of love. The wizarding manual was published by muggles. Have you ever read _Romeo and Juliet_? By William Shakespeare?"

"Of course," Harry replied. "A pretty corny play, but. . . ."

Harry was abruptly cut off by Neville, who said quietly, "Of course it's corny. It's an instructional production designed to make small children fear love."

"What? No, _Romeo and Juliet_ promotes love. It's about love even with bad blood between families. It's considered one of the great romances by the overly literate," Harry replied.

Neville snorted at Harry's label, but quickly sobered again. "Whatever. In the wizarding world, abuse is idiotic, because often it will stunt a child's magical growth, causing dishonor for the family. Choosing a spouse because of love was long ago abandoned, in exchange for choosing a spouse who would genetically be a good match. The wizards who chose love over genetic superiority died out a long time ago. There are ways that love can easily be manufactured. Infatuation, and lust, by looks, or genuine love, by potions and ensnarements of the senses. This line has all of these covered. Their foremost weapon is love. When these Patils leave Hogwarts, they will assume another name, other than Patil, and ensnare another magically powerful sucker, to give the Patils ever stronger children." Neville leaned closer to Harry, and whispered as quietly as he could, "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and place a twenty four hour watch on those that you love."

Listening to Neville's explanation, the laughter in Harry's eyes died, and was replaced by an shock. Suddenly, Harry felt significantly more trepidation about entering the wizarding world. "Oh shit," Harry breathed.

Neville laughed a bit, before visibly shaking himself, and changing the subject. "I don't like talking about love. Instead, let's talk about **magic**." Neville grinned, and took out his wand again. "Here, I'll show you the spell my grandmother spent hours drilling me in. Longbottoms are allowed to get trained in other magic only after they've mastered this spell, completely and utterly. He extended his right arm to its fullest extent, and with the look of one who had years of experience at what he did, he expertly twirled his wand so that the tip went around in a perfect circle, and exclaimed loudly, "_Tor_." Immediately, a large ball of water appeared in the air, and began to morph into different masks, at first ones reminiscent of those utilized in the Greek tragedies, and then later into ones identical to those used by the Samurai in order to scare his opponents. Neville, panting a little, wiped a drop of sweat away from his face, and proudly cast "_Finite_," on his ball, which disappeared. "The obscuring water. The simplest water spell, but I don't think that just anyone could cast it with the skill of a Longbottom," he boasted. "We're practically trained from birth to use that one."

Harry grinned, congratulated Neville briefly, and then cast it himself, surprising Neville rather badly. Harry's masks had none of the detail of Neville's, but they were a passable imitation, and seemed good enough to earn a, "Damn you to the seventh, Potter. Way to steal my thunder." He raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Who taught you how to do that, if you were raised by muggles?"

Harry's smile turned into a grimace, and he silently dispelled the balls, again surprising Neville. "A professor from Hogwarts gave me a basic introduction. I stopped living with my relatives on my birthday."

Neville felt as if an ice cube had slipped down his back, and shivered. "Well, it couldn't have been so bad, if you learned how to silently cast, and how to use the obscuring water spell so well. And besides, you'll be able to visit the muggles- I mean, your relatives, over vacation."

Harry's eyes seemed to become sharper, and the grimace became a full fledged frown. "I don't believe that you comprehend my words," Harry said, slowly, "I **stopped living with my relatives after mybirthday**."

Neville, whose goose bumps seemed to have exploded into goose mounds, felt his eyes grow wide, and he nodded quickly, realizing that he'd touched a nerve of a wizard who was probably more powerful than him, and remembered Uncle Algie's warning about touching the nerves of wizards and witches more powerful than you, which his grandmother had termed succinct. **Don't.** Remembering how entirely sincere his Uncle had been, he froze, like a deer in the headlights.

Harry, realizing that Neville was a little terrified, and that the Patil twins were now staring, warmed his icy anger a bit, and calmly continued. "It was decided that they were unfit guardians, and a new guardian has been chosen for me."

"Who?" One of the Patil twins asked. Harry realized that a mnemonic would be that they hadn't switched positions, so the one on the left would be. . . .

"That's rather private, Parvati," he returned, feeling rather smug.

She simply nodded, and nodded to Padma, who began to speak. "As Parvati and I don't specialize in flashy spellwork like you two, we don't have anything of note to show." She mock pouted, but Neville, who seemed to have recovered, gave them a suspicious look.

"Maybe you could slip a Nott that love potion you've been working on, and give a Goyle a dose of your ensnarement," he sneered, trying to forget his fear of an ally, just a few seconds ago.

Parvati pretended to be hurt, but Harry could see her eyes sparkle. He suspected that Neville saw it too, from the way that Harry could tell that he tensed up, out of the corner of his eye. Padma, after a few seconds, couldn't keep her hurt expression, and simply began to giggle a bit. Parvati, mock glaring at her, said condescendingly, "For your information, Mr. Longbottom, the first enchantment I learned wasn't for making a bloke love me forever and ever." She smiled a little, before she, too succumbed to giggling. "It was extremely amusing to cast the enchantment on Dad. Or at least after we took it off. If you could've seen the expression on Dad's face after he realized that he'd been lusting after a couple of ten year olds for twenty minutes!"

Harry shivered, pretty disgusted, even though Snape had told already informed him that to Wizards, incest wasn't considered taboo, at all, although behaviors that would probably weaken the bloodline invariably were, so often, if it was between a brother and sister, the brother would purge himself as much as possible of his mother's genes, and the sister of her father's, and if it was a Electra complex, then the daughter would purge herself of her father's genes, and if you had an Oedipal complex. . . . Harry forcefully shook himself, to rid himself of the disturbing image, but he could still hear Snape's voice, frankly lecturing Harry on the general rules of wizard kind, which seemed to center mostly around getting more powerful children, not so peculiar in the traditionally magical power driven society that was the world of magic.

If you had a child who was exhibiting surprisingly high amounts of magical power for your family, you would do nearly whatever you could to get that child married to someone in a traditionally powerful family, to make an anomaly the norm. Snape had remarked that it was a regrettable system that was driving the lower classes closer and closer to muggles, but was admittedly making the powerful ever more powerful, quickening the evolution of the race of humans at the expense of many. Snape hadn't mentioned the dearth of love, though. Harry supposed that he thought that Harry had picked up that love wasn't exactly a popular emotion among witches and wizards, or like Neville, had assumed that Harry was sufficiently cautioned against love by muggles. Harry shivered again, as he recalled Neville's fervent warning, and imagined Neville's mother warning him to look both ways as he crossed the street, not run with scissors, and avoid love at any and all costs.

Harry snapped back to the conversation at hand, and realized that Neville was staring with anger at Padma, who was gazing back with an amused look in her eyes, and Harry was suddenly really sad that he had missed the conversation. Neville, with anger in his eyes, turned to Harry, and visibly tried to compose himself, before speaking. "On another topic, Harry, which house do you think you'll get into?"

Harry blinked, and stared with a look of confusion in his eyes, before he realized what Neville was referring to. "Er, well the professor had figured it was a toss-up between any of them. And, well, at my old school, I was always considered intelligent, but from what you've said about Hogwarts, I suppose I'm just another bloke here." Harry shook his head, ruefully. "So I guess Ravenclaw's out of the question. I'm not exactly the bravest guy, I don't really need to prove myself, and I've never had enough friends to be very loyal." Harry smiled a kind of sad smile, and looked Neville in the eye. "I guess it **is** a toss-up."

Neville frowned a bit at Harry's statement, but quickly brightened, as he moved to talk about himself. "I'm a Gryffindor, for sure. Longbottoms have leaned Gryffindor since Hogwarts was founded, most hunters do, you know, like the Potters post-Grindelwald, and loads of people say I'm nearly exactly like my dad when he was my age, and he was Gryffindor, through and through."

Harry, his interest piqued, decided to let Neville change the subject, and asked, "Who does your dad hunt for now?"

Neville set his jaw, and as if repeating something by rote, said, "My parents were both tortured to insanity shortly after the Dark Lord fell, because they opposed him. They haven't gotten better since."

Harry, his turn to be horrified, murmured his deepest apologies as sincerely as he could, but Neville shrugged them off., with a small smile. "I never got to know them, and I grew up in a good home. Besides, there's a possibility that some new treatment will come out, and they'll get better." Neville almost seemed to sigh, before catching himself. "Relatively, I shouldn't be complaining. You're much worse off than I, Harry."

Harry scrunched his face up, before putting his hands between his knees, and looking down at them, reflectively. "It doesn't seem right to compare loss."

Parvati groaned, and put her head in her hands. "Your lives are so bloody depressing, you're practically making me sorry that no one close to me has died. Stop it. On the other hand, it looks like I'm going to be in Gryffindor, and Padma's going to be in Ravenclaw. So you better watch out, Longbottom. You're gonna be dead meat," she sneered.

"What are you talking about? Dead meat? Why?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"Er, once a week, on either Friday or Saturday, Saturday I think," Neville began.

"Yup, Saturday," Padma jumped in.

Neville continued, totally ignoring Padma, really aggravating Harry, that he'd zoned out for a few seconds. "The four houses get together and have a kind of competition, within the grade. It allows Hogwarts to be a kind of meritocracy. Living conditions aren't bad, per se, but they're Spartan, and the better you do in school, and the more of these competitions you win, the better they get. So, for example, at first it's a typical dorm system, with twenty five kids in a dorm, and you all share a few showers. However, keep a good average for a month, and you get a merit point. You trade in merit points for amenities. So, for example, a shower by yourself is one merit point, a bathroom is another one. A bedroom by yourself is three points, a bedroom with one other person is two, and one with just four people is one for each person. The competitions give you a challenge, and then ask you to compete with other people. For example, my uncle told me that a common challenge in his time was to give a rare, possibly complicated, spell, explain vaguely how to use it, and then ask you to use it to complete a task. Like, say, they tell you the incantation for the obscuring water, the wand movement, and then ask for you to lure a kneazle to a specific location. Another time, they might give you a potions list for a potion, and ask you to make it. Anyway, all of the competitions, except for the last one each month, are worth one merit point. The last one gives you an objective, and asks you to complete it however possible, and it's worth three. Er, right, and each house only lets the first person done win. The rest of the house just kind of wallows in shame for a week. So often, four people, one from each house, will band together, and help each other with the competitions. The quartet will often form a closely knit group, and often become study partners. Er, Harry, if you're not in Gryffindor, I'd be really glad to be on your team."

Harry, kind of overwhelmed by the deluge of information, took a few seconds to realize that Neville was looking for some kind of response to his declaration, and nodded his head absently. "Same to you, Neville."

After that, Padma and Parvati began using their sign language again, to Neville's dismay, who started staring at their hands, as if afraid that they'd suddenly explode, and Harry returned to his book, although not really looking very hard, now. His brain was more than thoroughly occupied with the many things he had learned in the past half hour or so.

The train eventually stopped, around a half hour later, and everyone filed out of the compartment, Neville still sneaking suspicious glances at the Patils, who flounced off with a quick hand signal backwards, which caused Neville to bristle even more, not knowing what it meant. He cursed softly, and gestured for Harry to follow him towards where the practically robotic conductors were pointing. Harry could barely see him in the thick fog, and grabbed his arm to stay with him.

Harry abruptly remembered his levitation charm, and tugged on his arm for Neville to wait while he cast it. He immediately afterwards jumped onto his trunk, and abruptly moved forward blindly, only to bump into a gigantic man, at least seven feet tall, in a neat three piece suit. He smiled down at Harry, and gently moved the trunk out of the way with one of his hands, pointing along with the conductors, albeit moving with the crowd, too. "Come along, first years." He boomed, "You're headed towards the boats. Just jump in, there are stabilizing charms galore." He jogged ahead of the group, and quickly made it to the now visible pier. "Right, three to a boat, don't be shy, step right up, kids."

Harry attempted to maneuver himself onto Neville and some girl's boat with his trunk, when the giant man spotted him. "Hey, you. With the black hair. On the trunk. You weren't supposed to take that with you, you know." He flicked his wand twice, first forward, and then back, and Harry fell off his trunk and into his boat, which his trunk followed up by abruptly flying back off to the carriage. "There you go." He looked around, and seeing that all of the boats had been filled, stepped very calmly off of the pier and onto the water. He walked on the water, his enormous strides quickly taking him from the front boat, to around the middle of them. "Listen up, first years!" he yelled. There was complete silence. "Wands out!" All wands were taken out. "This is a mainly water spell, with a slight travel component, so if you know how to swim, think about how it feels to swim. If you don't, then just do what you can with a basic understanding of water and running. The incantation is "Fazzy". Yeah, it's sounds silly, so laugh it up," he said, to the sound of laughter. He grinned, before continuing. "But it works well enough for propelling the boat forward. The wand movement is a kind of j shape in the water- those of you familiar with kayaking will recognize it as the j-stroke." He waved his wand in the air, and muttered a terse syllable, before a wonderful three dimensional picture of a wand moving in the shape of a 'j' appeared before their eyes. "Er, yeah, like this. Go on, try it kids."

Harry grimaced, realizing that he would be at a disadvantage here, without knowing how to swim, but followed the directions, trying to remember simultaneously the wonderful mindlessness of running, and the cleansing properties of water. When he felt like he had the feeling right, he cast the spell on the left side of the boat, adding his charm to Neville's and the girl's, propelling the boat sharply forward, and veering off to the right. He muttered an obscenity, and Neville yelled forward, over the spray of the water, "Not so bloody hard, Potter. And switch to the other side."

Harry nodded, and quickly complied, reapplying the charm and again causing it to veer in the opposite direction, which was still rather irritating, although very fast. Harry growled, and yelled to Neville and the nameless girl to switch to the same side, to counterbalance Harry's spell. They did, and within a minute, they had crossed the gargantuan lake. Several moments later, the large man ran by them, slightly out of breath. "Great job, you guys. A merit point for you all."

Neville grinned, and held out his hand, palm up, to Harry. Harry stared at it for a second, panting from the exertion of a new spell, trying to figure out what Neville wanted him to do, before Neville grew frustrated groaned. "Don't tell me you've never given someone five before, Harry. C'mon." Harry flushed at his social ignorance, and lightly tapped Neville's hand, before rushing out of the boat, and looking for the other boats, to hide his flush. He couldn't see all of the boats, and so he nervously began casting the spells that Snape had had him learn, so that it seemed nearly like a complex light show. He _knew_ what he was supposed to do.

As he lost himself in the colorful magic he was rather surprised to feel a gigantic hand ruffling his hair, and a surprisingly quiet whisper in his ear, "Je te souviens."

Harry stood there, stunned for a second, before abruptly turning around, ready to question the man, but he was gone, to the head of the group. "Go on, up to the castle, first years," the man stated.

Harry made a face, before quickly charming his sneakers, and beginning to float towards the door. Suddenly, he heard the giant say, "_Finite Incantatem_" and he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground. He glared around, trying to figure out where he was, before sighing and deciding to just walk there. He jogged ahead, up to the giant front doors, and then slumped over, pretty tired after both the magical exertion and the jog.

Several seconds later, he was rather surprised by the same heavy hand, ruffling his hair again. "Can't have you be using magic for everything, you know. Your muscles will atrophy," he chastened. Harry spun around, again not noticing the tall man sneak up on him.

"Who are you, sir?" Harry wondered out loud.

"I'm Rubeus Hagrid. Professor Hagrid to you. I teach third and fourth year illusions, so if you decide you like that kind of charm . . ." Professor Hagrid winked at him, before quickly casting a muttered charm on himself. Instantly, the professor was replaced by a petite blond woman, around one and two thirds meters tall, in a flowing green dress. Except it "You'll be able to learn charms like this in my class, if you want," Hagrid began. wasn't Hagrid's voice anymore, but the voice of a young woman.

Harry's eyes went wide, and he breathed, "Wicked."

"But it's only an illusion," the professor reminded him. "Here, wave your hand over my head."

Harry complied, and was rather surprised to feel a warm body under his hand, and to see the woman's breast move when he did it. "I'm sorry kid, I don't think we're far enough in our relationship yet, for you to be touching me there," Professor Hagrid joked. Harry turned pink, and looked away. Professor Hagrid, still chuckling, reversed the spell, and was suddenly looming over Harry again. "See, it's not as useful as transfiguration, which **really **gets the job done, but it's much simpler, and much easier on your magic reserves. 'Waste not, want not'," he quoted, "Is my mantra, so glamours of all sorts are my forte. Come on, it seems like the rest has caught up." He turned to face the gathering crowd, most of whom were panting, and raised his voice again. "Is that everyone?" he asked.

One of the kids who was panting hardest, raised his hand, and after the professor nodded at him, responded, "There are some who couldn't get the spell to work, they're still stranded back at the water . . . thing." he panted, clearly too worn out to think coherently.

"Lake?" someone prompted, jeeringly.

"Yes, thank you. Lake," he blandly responded, amidst half-hearted laughter.

The professor ignored it, and simply created a dove, which Harry couldn't tell was real or illusionary, and sent it off back towards the lake. He addressed the group again, saying, "Right. You bright kids have passed the pop quiz with flying colors. Of course, you all have to be kiddie geniuses to attend, so I suppose you're just the guys and gals who woke up on the right side of the bed this morning. You guys all get a merit point, which you can trade for an easier life at Hogwarts. And the first boat gets two, because you guys are clearly so superior."

Neville pumped his fist in the air, and whooped unembarrassedly, to the amusement of his peers, who laughed. Harry grinned, but settled for a purely mental victory dance.

"I won't explain the entire merit system to you guys right now, your house mates can fill you in, but for now, know that the reason that you'll want to trade in these points are because conditions aren't so–"

"Holy shit! A bridge!" a student interrupted. This was followed by a little bit of laughter, but only a little, because most of them were in fact distracted by what was, in fact, a gigantic, semi-translucent bridge, reaching from back at the lake up to near the front of the castle, that seemed to be forming out of mid air.

Professor Hagrid, irritated at being interrupted, rolled his eyes, and chastened the child. "Kid, however apt your statement was, please refrain from that language in a public forum. And don't interrupt me. Hypothetically, if I trusted you as far as I could throw you, I'd probably trust you a quarter mile." This too was followed by laughter, considerably more than before, and the student flushed, abashed. "Anyways, as I was saying, the living conditions aren't exactly fit for a king, although if you trade in your points, they can become similar to those fit for a king. There will be little contests through which you get more merit points, and you will be rewarded merit points for not messing up too badly in school, and for saving the world and what not. Er . . . note. Saving the world will get you loads more points than doing your homework, because we feel that given a choice between doing your charms essay and subduing a dark wizard bent on the apocalypse, you should probably choose subduing a dark wizard. Alright . . . er . . . oh, right," he remembered, "Everyone tuck your shirts in, make yourselves look presentable. The other years will judge you by how ruffled you look by this little test, so you're aiming for the epitome of nonchalance."

Harry heard a muttered charm from next to him, and was about to ask about it, when Hagrid continued, "Hm . . . I think I've covered the basics, and just in time. Here come the failures. Go on, point and laugh, kids."

The students did, and the professor let them continue for a little while, before silencing them. "Now that everyone's here, let's go." Professor Hagrid took hold of the two knobs, and motioned for the children to move, before heaving the doors open with a grunt.

The first thing that Harry noticed was the blinding light, a great change from the pitch black darkness of the foggy night. After his eyes had grown accustom to the light, the next thing he saw was that the room seemed rather familiar, as he had seen it on his first visit to the castle. Harry suddenly realized that it seemed almost like another lifetime, even though it had only been a month ago. He could barely imagine a life where people couldn't levitate other people with their minds anymore.

The room looked familiar, but it wasn't precisely the same. For one, it seemed much larger, and for two, there were tons of small, four-person tables, most of which were occupied by four people, typically two boys and two girls, who seemed to trust each other completely, although there were around one in seven that were bereft of people. There was also a table off to the left side of the hall that had roughly twenty people seated there, none of which seemed to have the comradeship that the foursomes shared. There was also a table off to the right side of the hall that was completely empty. Some of the people looked at Harry's fellow first years with mild interest, although most of them simply continued to converse with their . . . table-mates, for lack of a better word.

"Is that all of the first years?" the tall headmaster inquired. Harry wondered briefly how he could be so easily heard over the din of the room, but realized seconds after his initial thought that it must've been magic. He briefly wondered what _couldn't_ be done with magic, before going back to examining the room and listening to the conversation.

"Yes, Headmaster Dumbledore," the giant easily said, respect tinging his reply.

The headmaster nodded in reply, and stood up, before screaming, "Quiet!" as loud as he could, which happened to be very loud, as his voice was still under that voice enhancing charm. Instantly, there was silence, as pretty much everyone in the room quickly stuck their fingers in their ears. Satisfied that there was silence, Headmaster Dumbledore smiled broadly, and began. "We'll start with the sorting, and then move onto changes in rules and the food."

The already seated kids watched with mostly bored expressions, although a few of them watched with interest. When Harry followed their gazes, they typically seemed to be aimed towards people who seemed to be family members, although he felt rather self-conscious with the knowledge that many of the kids out there were staring anxiously at him, probably more "Je te souviens-ers." Harry concentrated kind of vaguely on the singing hat, which was relatively normal after talking to mirrors who were fashion experts and paintings with the magical equivalent of a PhD. Realizing that everyone had to try on the hat for several seconds, Harry thought of something to amuse himself with, as well as something to distract himself from the stares. He _knew _what he had to do. His last assignment from Snape, which was actually more of a long-term suggestion than a real assignment. Harry specifically recalled the rather memorable line of, "If you're not a sodding idiot, you'll work on this." Optomancy, or more commonly, eye-fuckers. The art had fallen out of already uncommon use after a group of optomancers had begun using their optomancy to figure out which woman to rape on the grounds of how attractive she was, by seeing through walls to how she looked when she was showering. After the hunters had figured out what they were doing and disseminated the information to the general populace, the name, "eye-fuckers" had caught on, and with the capture and imprisonment of the last eye-fucker, people began to not bother learning it, deeming it fairly embarrassing, and tricky to learn, magical art.

Optomancy was never a very common art because it required extensive training to simply learn how to change your eyes into a form of binoculars, which could much more easily be done with the genuine article. Few people could learn to alter their eyes skillfully enough to pass to the next part, which involved seeing the unseen, and through solid objects, and months, if not years, could be wasted. However, as Harry had been unconsciously using optomancy for years, Snape reasoned that the rest would come simply, and had shown Harry how to use his spectacles to help himself train, by forcing them to remain on one setting, and forcing his eyes to accommodate the new setting.

Harry pulled the glasses out of his pocket and donned them. Instantly, he began to get a headache, but by simply concentrating on being able to see again, his headache quickly subsided, and his vision returned to normal. He wondered if it was even quicker than it had been yesterday, and supposed that it probably had been, before grinning. Professor Snape really was a genius.

Harry took off the glasses, and repeated the exercise, although this time it was getting his eyes back to normal, instead of letting him see farther. Around halfway through it, he realized that the intimidating lady with the grey hair was calling his name, as if irritated, and someone was punching his arm. He jerked forward, his eyesight still not back to normal, and somewhat unsteadily made it towards the hat, unused to the suddenly great distance from the ground. After several seconds of wretched walking, he did his best to focus his eyes on the hat, and then closed his eyes, in order to control the dizziness he was beginning to feel, simply concentrating on walking in a straight line.

When they noticed this, some of the kids started to jeer and laugh, although all of the jeers seemed to be extraordinarily short-lived, Harry noted. He opened his eyes, realizing that he wasn't walking straight towards the hat and stool anymore, and readjusted his walking, deciding to not close his eyes for the remaining twenty or so meters. He surprised himself when after six strides, he closed what he had thought were twenty meters, and in fact stepped over the stool. Harry thought that the grey haired woman scowled a little as she handed him the hat with as much pomp as he supposed one could have when handing over a hat. Again misjudging, with his newly lost depth perception, he reached directly towards her forearm by accident, and had to run his hand along her arm in order to prevent himself from another hat-grabbing related mishap, causing her scowl to deepen. Harry closed his eyes, sat on the stool, and as cooly as he could, after stumbling all the way from the entrance to the middle of the hall, donned the hat.

Instantly, it was as if he had been transported into complete darkness, so dark that he couldn't see his hands as he waved them in front of his eyes. It was chilling, and absolute, and Harry briefly wondered why no one had screamed yet. He speculated that perhaps the darkness had prevented sound too, and experimentally mumbled, "Darkness, weird." Hearing himself quite clearly, he realized that it was probably some kind of bizarre side effect that only cursed him, of wearing the hat, pulled his wand out of his front pocket, and cast, "_Finite Incantatem_."

The darkness didn't go away, and he cursed under his breath. "No dice," he heard, echoing eerily from all around him. Harry's eyes widened, but he did nothing more than clutch his wand a little more, realizing how powerless he was in the situation. Suddenly, the darkness was gone, and the familiar, albeit blurry, hall was there again. "Ravenclaw!" a voice from somewhere above Harry's head rang out. The echoing voice came again, and simply laughed, long and hard.

Harry quickly took off the hat, and the laughing stopped. He returned the hat to the lady without standing up, and took a minute to adjust his eyesight back to normal. Harry was rather close to normal when the woman tapped him on the shoulder, and with harsh scowl, commanded, "Mr. Potter! To the first year table, this instant!"

Harry nodded and complied, this time moving easily, surprising the woman greatly, so much that she stuttered a little as she called out the next name.

Harry walked over to the first year table, not even truly acknowledging that he had been placed in a house, just puzzling over the hat's trial. He reached the first year's table, and finding a seat next to Neville, sat down heavily, mumbling, "That was bloody neurotic."

Neville turned to face Harry, and nodded heartily. "I started flailing around, and screaming at the hat, and it gave me Gryffindor, house of the brave. Weird logic."

Harry cocked his head to the side, and expressed his own experience. "I just used a bunch of different spells. It probably decided that I could keep a level head in a crisis. The screaming and the flailing of limbs could be considered, 'raging against the darkness', as a coward might've simply shrunk into a ball. Perhaps a Hufflepuff would've simply kept at it with a light charm, and a Slytherin would've figured that everyone had the same experience, and worked to make himself look the best."

Neville nodded slowly, and murmured that Harry was probably right. "After all, you're one of the smart ones, eh?" he joked, elbowing Harry. "Congrats." He began to look a little nervous, and sat on his hands unconsciously. "So . . . er . . . wanna work together in the contest dealies?" he asked, hopefully.

Harry nodded yes, to Neville's relief, before asking Neville, "I don't suppose that you saw where the girl who was in our boat went? She seemed to grasp that spell even quicker than the 'great watery Longbottom'," he said, ribbing Neville.

Neville scowled, elbowed Harry, and jerked his head to his and Harry's left. "Another Gryffindor. I was thinking that maybe she could join us, but I suppose she's going to be an enemy."

Harry smiled, and said, "Yeah, I was considering her as a candidate for team Potter/Longbottom." Harry's grin turned smug, and he speculated, "I suppose that great minds think alike, eh?"

Neville smiled, and was about to respond when Dumbledore's voice rang out again, "I'll cut to the chase. New stuff is on the board, don't go into the cordoned off corridor unless you've got a death wish, and chow down. Thank you."

There was an extremely short lived round of applause, directly followed by people 'chowing down', readily and loudly. Harry and Neville didn't speak much, although they decided to eat together again tomorrow, in order to determine a time slot in which their group could meet.

At the end of dinner, Harry was led by the prefects up several flights of stairs to what the prefects called, "Wing Ravenclaw," and then into a gigantic room that was called, quite simply, "Main Dorms," or as Penelope, one of the prefects, joked, "The Living Quarters that Kind of Really Suck." They were divided up by gender, with the boys sent to the right side of the hall, and the girls sent to the left side. From there, the male prefects showed Harry and his fifty or so other classmates the shared showers, shared bathrooms, and laundry room.

Ravenclaw's head boy, one Peter Davies, advised Harry and the first years to use their first few merit points on getting out of the shared showers and getting house elves to do the laundry and garbage. "After you've got house elves cleaning up after you, you wonder how you ever did without it," he said, "And besides, if Hogwarts' elves doesn't give them enough labor, they start killing themselves and no one wants that to happen." There was a sort of shocked silence from Harry and the muggleborns, and the prefects and head boy took that as their cue to leave.

After the shock wore off, the boys briefly fought over who would get the cot with the 'best location'. Harry decided against it, and headed straight for the back of the hall, along with a few other boys, the most timid of the lot. He _knew_ it didn't matter. He sat down on his bed, and started taking off his shirt, when his trunk materialized next to his bed. Harry raised an eyebrow, and opened his suitcase to unpack into the tiny dresser next to his bed. He _knew that_ he should do it early. In the end, he couldn't fit in all of his khakis, and opted to keep two pairs of them in his trunk, alongside his books and other materials.

Harry quietly passed his classmates, who were still fighting and now resorting to the few spells they knew, and took a shower, before returning to his bed, where he lay in bed for around an hour, before he finally went to bed. He _knew_ that it was the right thing to do. He managed to get to sleep an hour later, blocking out the din of the rest of the room, in order to be fit for his first day at school. He _knew._

A/N: Ugh, finally. I actually wrote more than half of this right after I posted the last chapter, so it's kind of sad that this took so long. However, school ends soon, so updates should be quicker, instead of once a month.

Edit: Thanks to nonjon, an awesome writer, and an awesome reviewer, for pointing out the mistake in this chapter. Neville cannot physically lean towards himself. Also, thanks to Fojio, who later pointed out that Souvenir is a reflexive verb. Thank you.

Edit the Second: Thanks to Traveller, who pointed out that dollars are not used in the UK, much less in magical UK.

Okay. Readers, please read this. This isn't some stupid ploy to make reviewers review more, (although that's a pretty good idea) I'm seriously interested in who can figure this out first. This story has a plot that actually takes over JKR's, and makes hers a sub-plot of sorts. But... you have to figure out what has happened first. When you do that, I will change the title of my story to better suit it, (this is an old title that doesn't fit at all, and I actually have a title planned out) and make a big revelation that makes the plot obvious.

HINT "I dunno. It's Witch to me."


	6. First Day: Part One

Wit of the Raven

Chapter 6

At breakfast the next morning, a wide awake Harry alongside a number of his classmates received their schedules. After a brief comparison of schedules, Harry determined that he all of the same classes as at least two other Ravenclaws, as well as Neville, who was terribly excited to learn this. "This is amazing, Harry! The chances that we had to be in the same class . . . well, it baffles the mind. There are thirteen core groups, that is, groups of people who have all of the same classes, except for Magical Transporation One, and some other class . . . uh . . . er . . . I forget it right now, but there are two classes that aren't core classes," Neville gushed, "I was flipping through Hogwarts a History last night before bed, and what happens with the classes is that it starts out with core groups, like this, because Hogwarts likes to give everyone a chance at everything, so that their parents don't choose a career path for them. Pretty sweet, actually. And . . . we all have classes together," he continued, "Because Hogwarts figures that we'll have a better time if we get to know some people, rather than kind of throwing us to the sharks."

Harry agreed that this was a rather way of handling it, and set out to memorize his schedule between bites of his breakfast.

_Monday_

_8:20-9:05 Magical History (W 106) Scamander_

_9:05-10:05**Language** (W xxx) **Meet in GrHa**_

_10:05-10:50 Charms (W 124) Barnshot_

_10:50-11:35 Class Meeting (GrHa)_

_11:35-12:20 Herbology (GrHo 1) Sprout_

_12:20-13:05 Lunch/Clubs (GrHa)_

_13:05-13:50_

_13:50-14:35 Combat Magic (W 644) Dawlish_

_14:35-15:20**Transportation**_ _(OS)_ **_Meet outside FD_**

_Tuesday_

_8:20-9:05 Astronomy (PL 2) Sinistra_

_9:05-10:05 Home Econ (W 124) Barnshot_

_10:05-10:50_

_10:50-11:35 Potions (W 016) Snivven_

_11:35-12:20 Algebra I/Geom. (W 401)Zayne_

_12:20-13:05 Lunch/Clubs (GrHa)_

_13:05-13:50 Algebra I/Geom. (W 401) Zayne_

_13:50-14:35 Herbology (GrHo 1) Sprout_

_14:35-15:20 Mag. Cult. Lect. (GrHa) Dumbledore_

_Wednesday_

_8:20-9:05 Transfiguration (W 235) Fibonacci_

_9:05-10:05 Care of Mag. Crea. (OS) Kettleburn_

_10:05_-_10:50 Illusions (W 190) Pelgang_

_10:50-11:35 Charms (W 124) Barnshot_

_11:35-12:20 Charms (W 124) Barnshot_

_12:20-13:05 Lunch/Clubs (GrHa)_

_13:05-13:50 Algebra I/Geom (W 401) Zayne_

_13:50-14:35_

_14:35-15:20 Magic (OS) Nectarus_

_Thursday_

_8:20-9:05_

_9:05-10:05 English (W 107) Wyrned_

_10:05-10:50 Algebra I/Geom (W 401) Zayne_

_10:50-11:35**Language** (W xxx)_

_11:35-12:20**Language** (W xxx)_

_12:20-13:05 Lunch/Clubs (GrHa)_

_13:05-13:50 Charms (W 124) Barnshot_

_13:50-14:35 Transfiguration (W 235) Fibonacci_

_14:35-15:20_

_Friday_

_8:20-9:05 Magical History (W 106) Scamander_

_9:05-10:05 English_ _(W 107) Wyrned_

_10:05-10:50 Care of Mag. Cre.(OS) Kettleburn_

_10:50-11:35 Herbology (GrHo 1) Sprout_

_11:35-12:20 Assembly (GrHa/Fields)_

_12:20-13:05 Lunch/Clubs (GrHa)_

_13:05-13:50**Language** (W xxx)_

_13:50-14:35 Runes (W 218) Laromans_

_14:35-15:20 Obscure Magics Lecture_ _(GrHa/Fields)_

Still munching on his toast and concentrating as hard as he could on his schedule, in order to find some sort of pattern that he could use as a mnemonic, he barely noticed Neville tugging on his shoulder.

"Hmm?" he asked.

"C'mon Harry, class."

Harry, surprised that it was almost class time, put down his toast delicately, and looked around for a clock. "Um, Neville," Harry asked, not seeing any clocks, or a watch on Neville's wrist, "How do you know what time it is?"

Neville's eyes lit up, and he looked at Harry with a little disbelief. "Magic, Harry!" He exclaimed. "_Tempus_," he cast idly. Little red numbers appeared in front of Neville, going year, month, day of the week, day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond, in that order.

Harry closed his eyes, and thought of the incantation. _Tempus_. _For an information spell. Think of information, and time. Maybe the passage of time? Cite examples of time flying, and time going slowly. Maybe an educational pamphlet. What's the wand movement for information? An L, rotated pi over two clockwise. Sharp corners. Implement the time gesture? Hmm, I don't know time._ _This should be enough_. Harry whispered, "_Tempus!_" fiercely, flicking his wand and remembering, clocks, wasted time, and his old school's sexual education pamphlets, and let the magic flow through it. Instantly, red numbers and letters appeared, far past Neville's milliseconds, although they seemed almost like mere blurs, flipping through 1-9 faster than the brain could process.

Neville started, as red numbers came dangerously close to forehead. "Bloody hell Harry," he gasped, as Harry cast _finite_ and sagged, slightly drained, "You didn't need to put so much energy into it . . . bloody hell, energy is leaking through with **heat**. Don't try so bloody hard," Neville commanded, slightly concerned, "You're going to get Burnout if you don't relax." Neville sank in his chair, before sitting up again, and adding, "Er, Burnout is when you cast too much magic, and. . . ."

"I know," Harry interrupted, "I got it over the summer." Remembering Snape's words, he refrained from adding that he seemed to be an anomaly.

Neville looked concerned, and asked, "Are you completely fine now? I've heard that you can completely lose your magic if you Burnout while Burned-out."

Harry's eyes widened. Snape hadn't told him that. "Er, yeah, I'm fine," he muttered. Harry grabbed a slice of toast, and gestured for Neville to come. "Class, remember?" he said between chews. He felt a headache coming on. He _knew_ he shouldn't talk while eating. Harry groaned quietly, and held his head with his free hand, gesturing to Neville, who had just stood up, to lead the way.

They found their first class with Newt Scamander with surprising ease, after Harry had the bright idea of asking a portrait for direction. He _knew_ it was intelligent to ask for directions. The portrait, one of a friendly witch by the name of Lucia Black, famous for her achievements at "Breaking" artefacts, essentially cleansing them of their harmful attributes. She had been happy to explain Hogwarts' system to them. Year One had students mostly in the East and West towers, and Year Two had students mostly in North and South. The numbers denoted first what floor, and then the number, like they usually did. GrHa denoted Great Hall, GrHo was Green House, OS meant Outside the Castle, and FD stood for Fields. The easy way to tell what direction you were going in, until you learned a spell, or memorized the directions, was to look through a window, as all of the windows had two directions on them, the directions parallel to the window.

When Harry and Neville strolled into class, Neville idly discoursing on the subject of the different applications of water spells, the first thing they realized was that they were the first to get to class. Harry took the chance to examine the classroom and commit it to memory, while Neville practiced his obscuring water charms. It was a small room, with around twenty chairs, arranged in sort of semi-ellipse, all facing towards the board, a chain unbroken except for directly in front of the door. There were pictures of what seemed almost like old movie posters, except with moving people, their actions looped.

Harry moved towards the poster, which read, 'Agincourt,' so intent on the actions of the people inside the poster, that he missed seeing a thick history book lying in his path. He tripped, and began to fall, and his arms, flailing out to find something to hold onto, touched the poster by accident. Suddenly, he wasn't falling anymore, he was terrified, and clutching his crossbow with his sweating hands, his knuckles pale with fear. He wondered when the French would strike, the damned French who had–

Suddenly, Harry was lying on the ground again, and his head was throbbing from where he'd hit it. Neville was standing over him, and Harry heard someone coming in, his or her footsteps reverberating through his head. "Are you fine?" Neville asked, concern in his voice. The steps came closer, and as Harry's head began to clear, the steps became simply very loud.

Harry pushed himself off the ground, so that he was sitting up, and asked, pointing at the picture, "What the fuck is that?"

Neville, understanding in his eyes, raised his eyes to look at the poster, his lips moving to form an 'O'. "That's an Impo Trailer," Neville stated. "You see through the actor's eyes, feel what the actor feel, see what the actor sees. Even think what the actor thinks. Agincourt is considered a classic."

Harry shook his head, which still remembered who it had been, several seconds before. "Really fucking vivid." Harry stood up, said hello to the newcomer, a girl. She smiled nervously back at them, and sat herself down in a desk. Harry _knew_ that he should be friendly, and after fully standing up and tried to start a conversation. "What house are you in?"

"Hufflepuff," she responded, quietly, but firmly, her voice unwavering.

Harry smiled a little broader, and sat down next to her. She had come to class early, like he _knew_ he must. If she proved to be intelligent and resourceful, as well as timely, Neville approved, and she wasn't completely horrific, then perhaps they could add her to the quartet. "What kind of magic do you like?"

The girl sat up a little straighter and informed them proudly, "I'm a chixor."

Neville started, and stared at her for a second, completely dropping his charms. "She's in, Harry," he muttered, his voice clearly telling Harry not to argue.

Harry raised an eyebrow, but asked, "I and Neville are the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor of a quartet, respectively. You want to be the Hufflepuff?"

The girl smiled, and nodded. "Hannah."

Harry returned, eloquently, "What?" He began to feel a headache coming on again. He _knew_ that he wasn't being eloquent.

She repeated, "Hannah. It's my name. Hannah Abbot. He's Neville, and I suppose you're Harry, but who **else **are you?" she asked.

"Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom," Neville answered for him.

Hannah instantly shot back, "Longbottoms and Potters have been allies since a little after we were born. Childhood friends?"

Harry shook his head. "I was living with muggles, so. . . ." Upon seeing the look of confusion on Hannah's face, Harry clarified, "My parents are dead."

"Oh," Hannah responded quietly. "I'll have to add that to the page."

"Page?" Harry asked.

Hannah grinned, "The one on the most eligible bachelors joining Hogwarts this year."

Neville rolled his eyes, and turned to Harry. "Haxors and chixors are trained in gathering information off the GWM from an early age, so essentially, Ms. Abbot is an invaluable resource for homework, new spells, and whatever needs to be seen. She could also make the rest of your life on the web miserable for the rest of your life if you piss her off too badly, so . . ."

Harry turned to Hannah, figuring that she was the expert, and asked, "GWM?"

"Giant web of magic. Legend has it, that Thoth got bored, and decided to see how large he could stretch some spider silk with magic, before it broke. He stretched it around the world, and then realized that it could fairly easily hold information, among other things. He built a caster that mimicked the original process, except with intangible threads, and used it until it completely covered the world. There are some new theories that when you write the omega to connect to the web, you're actually tapping into the electro magnetic field, which would explain the lack of access at the poles, but Thoth stands by his word, and I stand by Thoth."

"Thoth?" Harry asked, becoming more and more aware by the minute how much he'd need to learn.

"God of magic, first class. He's actually Djehuty, but the Greeks called him Thoth, and it kind of stuck. Don't try to invoke Thoth though, you'll just end up wasting a couple of virgins. Unless you're into necrophilia." Hannah giggled, and Neville twitched. Harry mentally noted to look up human sacrifice as it relates to gods, before hearing the door squeak open again. A stream of students came in, a few in twos, conversing among themselves, but the majority of them were loners, walking in quietly and taking desks as far away from the board as possible.

Neville, noticing them coming in, inclined his head towards Hannah. She cocked her head to the side, and replied, "We'll see."

Neville's lips pursed, but he simply nodded. Harry and Neville sat down in seats around halfway between the board and the back of the room, across from the door, and took out their books, in anticipation of the teacher's arrival. Several seconds later, the teacher marched in, a tall, greying man with a messenger bag. The room instantly became silent, and he nodded in approval before taking a bit of parchment out of his bag, and letting the bag drop to the floor.

"Just say here, if you are. Say nothing if you're not," he muttered, before yelling, "Abbot!"

"Here."

"Brooks! Dock! Johnson! Johns!"

"Here."

"Here."

"Here."

"Here."

"Smith! Potter! Longbottom! Kingsley!"

There was another chorus of Heres, and he continued,

"Black! Dock! Williams! Greengrass!"

"You already said my name, Professor," Dock, a rather short girl with mousy brown hair informed the teacher among a chorus of Heres.

"Good to see you're– Knightsbridge!– paying attention."

There was silence, and he repeated, "Knightsbridge!" More silence. "Very good, I abhor people with last name Knightsbridge. McAndrews!"

"Here."

"And we're all here. Good. I am Newt Scamander, you can call me Scamander, Professor, Professor Scamander, or Maestro." A few kids giggled at his inclusion of Maestro, but he silenced them with a look. "There will be a pre-test, to see if you're fit for this class."

The room began to mutter darkly, and this time he simply ignored them. "Ms. Clock! What is the name of this fine establishment?"

"It's_Dock_," Dock muttered under her breath. "Hogwarts," she replied sullenly.

"Wonderful, you all pass!" He clapped his hands together excitedly, and Harry decided that he liked Scamander. "Now everyone, pull out your books. I see that misters Potter and Longbottom have already done so, good job, all around. This first class will be fun." He drew out the f as long as humanly possible, giving it a slightly menacing air. Harry resisted the temptation to laugh out loud.

"Can one of you tell me how you guys would've been chosen for your houses, four hundred years ago, in the early days of the founders?"

Neville raised his hand slightly. "Longbottom?" Scamander asked.

"Much the same way as it is now, Professor Scamander?"

"Not at all, not at all, Mister Longbottom, but not a bad guess any other guesses?" No hands rose.

"Very good. No one likes a smartass." He cracked his knuckles, and smiled. "Well, initially, Gryffindor was stupidity, Slytherin was betrayal, Ravenclaw was fear, and Hufflepuff was mediocrity. Now, they changed it in order to attract more students, but from this, we can easily see the polar opposites of each of the houses. . . ."

Harry smiled, and leant forward in his desk, so that he could hear Scamander better. This, at least, was going to be an interesting class.

Around nine o'clock, Professor Scamander finished his enlightening lecture about Hogwarts, and assigned around 20 pages of reading for the next day before shooing them off to their next class. On the way out, Neville asked Hannah about whether or not she had decided to join the group, but she simply replied that she was still thinking about it. Neville nodded, and accompanied Harry to the Great Hall.

Once they reached it, Harry noticed that the regular tables were gone, and that in their place were a number of seats, set up in the same manner as a concert hall, facing towards a raised platform, a stage. Harry and Neville took seats somewhere in the middle. Around two hundred first years filed in, the lights dimmed, and the headmaster walked onto the stage.

After a brief round of applause, he addressed the crowd, "Hello. You will all be required to take a modern language for the first three years of your tutelage here, unless you are already proficient in it. The options this year will be Japanese, French, Spanish, Mandarin, German, Russian, Portuguese, Italian and Arabic. Also, in years past, people have requested that Hebrew be added as a language. If you can find a teacher, we will pay him or her. The teachers will now present their language to each of you! Thank you, I'm out." He gave a nod, and swept out of the auditorium.

There was another brief round of applause, before a large blond woman, smartly dressed in a two piece suit, came out onto the stage. "Hello kids."

The crowd echoed, "Hello," and the woman smiled.

"You kids are boring. I was expecting at least ten of you to know my name." There was silence, and she rolled her eyes. "I am Mrs. Gabrielle Istari. You may call me Professor Istari."

Neville tapped Harry's shoulder, and whispered, Harry, "Seems like a bitch."

Harry nodded solemnly, as she continued. "If you have a problem with your language, then you will come to me to request a transfer. I present to you, the heads of the individual languages." Istari seemed to stalk off the stage, and was quickly replaced by a white haired man, who appeared to be full of life, simultaneously looking no younger than 70, and no older than 30. Harry remembered the longevity of wizards, and placed him at around 100.

"Ah, French!" he began. "The French have, for centuries, been the epitome of fashion. As well, French is, and always has been, the language of love. Go French!"

As he was trotting off stage, a boy yelled, over the applause, "And know your enemy!" The teacher gave him a military salute, and continued to walk offstage, to much laughter.

Another man, although this time clearly much younger, maybe forty if one took into account the rate at which wizards aged, appeared in front of the podium, as if by magic. "Lots of people speak Spanish," he enunciated, through a strong Spanish accent. "And it's easy! Only one accent, same letters as English! You want to go to South America? Learn Spanish!"

Several more teachers gave their brief speeches, although the only ones that stood out were the Japanese and the Mandarin teachers. The Japanese one had walked off after yelling, "Robots!" and the Mandarin teacher mentioned that more people spoke Mandarin than any other language, and that although it was intensely difficult, it would end up being worth it, seeing as the muggle Chinese economy was blooming, and had just regained its former momentum, and that if you looked back just 15 years, the Chinese economy was growing at a rate of 70 percent, and, yes, it was definitely a valuable investment to learn Mandarin. At the end, Istari came back up, and ordered everyone to write their favored language in the language box on their schedules. Harry glanced at his schedule, and sure enough, the word **_Language_** had disappeared in favor of a blank box. She left the stage, and the hall burst into noise.

Harry thought for a second, before turning to Neville and saying that Chinese looked like the best bet to Neville, who looked unsure. "Well, the muggle economy is blooming, but the communists have never liked us. Wizards and witches, I mean. They know that they need us, to avert the very worst earthquakes and such, but they don't have very good rights, and we can't legally do business with muggles. Besides, Chinese is extremely difficult to learn. Do you have any second choices?"

Harry thought for a second, before remembering the gibberish that people had been telling him. "French, probably."

Neville nodded, approvingly. "Probably me too," he said. "You should go with that. Since the French successfully invaded England a ways back, which is where **we** come from, there are loads of French words already in English. Spanish is easier, but French... c'est magnifique! Er, magnificent. I'll probably join one of the more advanced French classes, since I already know a bit. A lot of the purebloods learn a language at home, since we can't really learn any magic except for the most elementary potions. I suppose I could take Arabic, since it would open up a gigantic portion of the world, but it looks hard. Now Spanish, that looks easy, but I can't envision myself ever going to Spain, except for the Tapas." Neville gave Harry a completely obvious wink, and nudged him, saying, "Besides, France already fulfils my nude beach quota. I mean. Culture. Quota. Of course." Neville glanced from side to side, mock nervously, and Harry elbowed him in the chest, suppressing a chortle.

Harry thought objectively for a second. He didn't really need the financial incentives, since he seemed to have a small fortune in his vaults, enough to live off of if he didn't lead too extravagant a life style, and France wasn't exactly a bad country to do business with, although they weren't too fond of the English. Most importantly, taking an easier language would leave more time for actual magic. He wrote _French_ into the box, and let Neville lead him to Charms, after Neville noted that it was nearly 10:05.

Charms was taught in a classroom arranged in nearly the same way as the history room, by an amazingly average looking woman. Her name was Guinevere Barnshot, and Harry supposed that she would be the perfect extra in a movie, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair, a slightly small nose, almond shaped eyes, and thin smile. Nearly everything about her screamed nondescript. However, she knew her stuff. She started off class by letting some of the kids show off their charms, and Neville's mastery of the Obscuring Water charm earned a raised eyebrow from the chixor they were 'wooing'.

Harry decided against showing off his spells, on the grounds that he probably wouldn't be able to practice any of the practical portion of the class, if there was one, but noted that Dock had a nice cutting curse, very clean, although Barnshot expressed some aggravation at her using her desk as an example. McAndrews had a neat _Pack, _although he seemed completely exhausted after that, and Barnshot expressed her further aggravation, before praising him for the advanced wand-work. Harry noticed that only four of them had decided not to show off some spell, Harry, Hannah, and two boys, Smith and Johns. Harry supposed that they must be familiar with a form of magic that wasn't charms, or naturally secretive, which was entirely possible, since Smith was a Slytherin, and Scamander had intimated that Slytherins were as subtle as Hufflepuffs were blunt. Of course, there was always the possibility that they were simply muggleborn, and didn't know any charms. However, judging by the identical smirks on their faces, Harry somehow didn't believe it.

Professor Barnshot had the class give everyone a round of applause, before flipping a switch on her desk. Instantly, the lights went out, the door slammed shut, and blinds rolled down, creating complete darkness in the room. A light sprung up around Barnshot, who strode to the middle of the classroom. "Right," she began, "today's class is going to be the beginning of our beginner level charms. We're going to be showing you a series of lower level charms. Everyone get out some parchment. _Lumos Minor _is a lower level version of the _Lumos _charm, and yes, Potter has got the trick. _Lumos_ is, yes, as Mr. Potter just showed us, a nice flicking of the wand. And... actually, it seems that, yes, Mr. Potter has lit up the entire classroom with his diffuse light. Please, Mr. Potter, don't over do it. No, Ms. Dock, see, the motion is all in the wrist–"

Harry pursed his lips, narrowly denying the temptation to scowl. He thought, _'Nox,' _and was somewhat placated when the light instantly died out, and he couldn't see his classmates' less successful attempts anymore. He realized that he wouldn't be able to make the spell actually less powerful, as his staff seemed to have a lower limit that he couldn't cross, which made weak spell casting very difficult, without making the more difficult spell casting any easier. Suddenly, Harry remembered that he had managed to cast it without lighting up the room completely while at the hotel, but quickly remember the burnout that he'd suffered after that.

Harry racked his brain for something that Snape had taught him over the weeks that would possibly allow for him to at least make it seem like he had a good control of his magic. Harry briefly considered a strongly charged Lumos Minor, followed by an average Nox. Or perhaps a Nox Minor? Harry briefly considered the idea, before discarding it. It wasn't worth the energy it would take Harry to cast the two spells, especially since Harry wasn't sure what combination of spells to use. The regular Diffuse Light spell, obscured with the Obscuring Water charm? Suddenly, Harry had it. If Harry could remember the way that Snape had taught Harry to loop one spell around another, in order to combine them, he might be able to... "_Lumos Minor, Tor,_" he whispered, not taking the chance of wordless magic with a new spell. The light quickly spread across the room as he flicked his wrist, but came back under his control as he smoothly followed it up by continuing the flick, smoothly turning the wand in a circle. Harry felt something be _right_, almost like something clicked in the magic, but not quite, and the light was completely under his control. He rolled slightly more than half of it up into a tiny ball, and threw it in his pocket, before anyone noticed him doing anything unusual with his magic. He briefly supposed that Snape's secrecy was rubbing off on him, but he had a feeling–no, he _knew_ that it wasn't a bad thing.

Once the last people had finished figuring out the charm, and there was a low light circling the room, Barnshot took her place at the center of the room again. "Now, in the Caribbean, there arose a style of magic that became internationally famous, although its roots can be traced back to West Africa, where many of the witches and wizards had been enslaved from. You'll learn more about that in History, I bet. Anyways, it only became famous around the world after its use in Haiti, and some surrounding isles. It's called, Vodou." The word appeared in the middle of the room, rotating around, so that everyone could see it. Harry thought it was a very neat presentation, and figured that it was probably a good time to pull out his pencil, which he seemed to have forgotten to do when he'd pulled out his paper. A few seconds later, a map of the Americas appeared, before zeroing in on half of an island. It read, 'Haiti', and next to it, there was a picture of the Haitian flag, the official languages, the capital, gross domestic product in purchasing power parities, currency, population, percentage of the population that was magical, and time zone. Harry wisely decided against trying to copy all of it down, deciding to write down at least the capital, the population and the GDP in PPP. "There are several interesting things about this charm, most specifically that it's extremely easy to make it an enchantment. But we won't be exploring that just right now. First of all, you have to find two objects. The purpose of the charm is to link them. Depending upon how you cast it, you can make it so that the other object is, say, diseased, when something specific happens to it. We're just going to work with movement, here, since it's the easiest, probably. Does anyone know the wand movement for movement based charms?"

Harry raised his hand, and after Barnshot pointed at him, quickly thrust his wand forward, thinking of movement. His desk was abruptly thrown backwards, and Barnshot smirked. "Ah, yes Mr. Potter, a quarter of a merit point for being more prepared for class than necessary. And for demonstrating one of the basic laws of physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Harry pushed something, most likely the air, very strongly, and the air, or something, pushed back very strongly. This is the main problem with movement charms, and this charm quite nicely gets rid of it. Everyone take one of these–" she pulled 13 identical toy yachts, illuminated by miniature lamps, out of one of her sleeves, and thrust her wand forward strongly, banishing each of them to one of the desks. "And link it to the person to your right's boat, and we'll see something interesting. You link it by casting, _Connect: Movement_." The letters scrolled around the center of the room, and Harry wrote them down, hesitating but a second before adding in the colon. "Vodou is also practiced extensively in New Orleans, or as the French liked to call it, La Nouvelle-Orleans, and as New Orleans is, obviously, part of an Anglophone country, and it was such a vital part of their life, they eventually developed a clever system and rather straightforward system of Vodou, so that you didn't need to memorize a bunch of non-Latin letters. Um, you'll have to concentrate on first your boat, then the second. It doesn't matter when you say the spell, although you can't move onto the second boat until after you've finished the incantation. Once you've finished casting, keep concentrating, at least partially, on your boat. Oh, right, McAndrews, please refrain from practicing at this point in time. And everyone, be sure to _only_ link it to one boat, don't link your boat to two."

Everyone except McAndrews, the boy who'd cast _Pack _and seemed rather relieved to not have to do any more spellwork at the moment, set about trying to figure out how to work the spell. Harry closed his eyes, and considered what would need to be done. He wanted to link the two boats. The incantation was _Connect: Movement_, and the wand movement was a forward thrust. Movement was running, or jumping, or leaping, or driving. Harry opened his eyes, and cast, "_Connect: Movement_". He thought of the joy of running, of leaping, and skipping and riding the train, or in the car, the wind whipping past his face, and on a whim, imagined the joy that would be felt when he was skipping alongside a girl who was all pale skin and– Harry lost the image, when a baby blue light darted forth from his wand, striking his boat first, and then the boat of the girl next to him, Someone Brooks.

Harry waited for several seconds for the other to finish figuring out the charm, and noticing that they hadn't yet, absentmindedly poked his boat forward a few inches, and was rather surprised, despite himself, when Brooks' boat was poked forward a bit too. She turned her head towards him in annoyance, before scowling at the boat again, and casting, finally getting it right.

Once everyone had successfully completed the charm, Barnshot walked over to Neville's desk, and picked up his boat, raising it over her head, causing all of the other boats to rise up too. The class 'ooh-ed' and 'ah-ed', all rather pleased with their performance. "Notice that all of the boats stay in the same point unless I move their center of gravity. If I rotate this boat around its center of gravity, then none of the other boats will move, except in their rotation." She demonstrated, and Harry realized that although it was a ring, Barnshot was demonstrating that it was a very limited ring, and could not be stretched or shrunk, but only rotated and shifted. "Now, notice what happens when McAndrews casts this, tying his boat and the one to the right of his, Longbottom's. McAndrews?"

He very casually cast the spell, with the air of someone who had done it a million times before, and Harry briefly wondered if he was a Charms specialist. However, all thoughts of Charms specialties were driven from his mind, when the blue light struck Neville's boat. There was a whooshing sound, and instantly, all of the floating boats disappeared. There was stunned silence for several seconds, and Barnshot took the opportunity to move back to her desk and turn the lights back on. "This is living proof of the 'No Casual Time Travel' rule. Because magic is instantaneous, the command to travel shifts from the first, to the second, and to the third, et cetera, to the thirteenth, and then back to the first, instantly, so that it's informed to travel constantly, forever, in an instant. Instead of letting it return to back where it was a few seconds ago, ah, slightly more advanced physics than you're required to know at this point, the powers that be decided that it would be much easier if they just had a law to intervene whenever someone did something silly like that. Tearing holes in the cosmos is just a little too annoying for them. Any questions?"

The stunned silence continued. The vanishing act had been completely unexpected, and Harry doubted that Barnshot's explanation had truly penetrated anyone's head. He quickly ran what she had said through his head again, and wrote down, 'No casual time travel' and 'Physics' in his notes.

Barnshot smiled, and dismissed the class. At the sound of her dismissal, Neville turned to Harry, and muttered, "Holy shit." Harry thought that summed up his feelings rather nicely.

Hannah came up from behind them, and smiled at Harry. "You picked up the charms pretty quickly. Are you a charms master?"

Harry smiled, and shook his head no. "I much prefer Runes and Potions, really. I just figured that I should know a _little_ about charms, although I prefer the less obvious Runes and more subtle Potions."

Hannah nodded, and ordered, "Show me a rune."

Harry's smile faltered for a second, before he had the perfect idea. "Verde," he whispered, turning the head of his staff green, before lifting up his shirt and drawing a lightning bolt shaped rune onto his stomach. "This is _eihwaz_," he explained, "_Eihwaz_ is the rune for defense." He finished drawing, and blinked hard as he felt his skin rearranging itself. "Every substance has an innate ability to do anything, and runes will draw out that ability. For example, punch me as hard as you can."

Hannah looked slightly worried, and asked, "Are you sure?"

Harry laughed, "So this is what a Hufflepuff is like. Yes I'm sure. Think of me as Harry Houdini, instead of Potter."

"This is how Houdini died," Hannah muttered, before rolling up her sleeve, and punching Harry in the gut. Harry didn't move, didn't even flinch, and didn't seem to feel it at all. In fact, it had felt rather like hitting a steel wall. "Wicked," she whispered.

"That why I love it," Harry replied.

"I'm in," Hannah announced gleefully. Neville, who had been asking an irritable Barnshot a question about disguising charms, appeared next to Harry, and Harry gave him a thumbs up. Neville glanced at Hannah, and raised his eyebrows, along with a thumb. Harry nodded, grinned, and raised his other thumb up.

"Nice," Neville breathed. "Welcome to the team, Abbot. We're still looking for a Slytherin, though. Preferably female, to even it out.".

"Brooks is one of two female Slytherins, and her spell was decidedly mediocre. I forget the other girl's name. While she could be trying to conceal her ability, it would make more sense for her to simply not cast it if she was trying to do so. It was some fire-based spell, um, Jad or something."

"Jak, actually. And it's not just for looking pretty." Harry pulled out his wand, and whispered, "_Jak._" He pulled his forearm forward, and released two large balls of flame. With another confident swish of his wand, he directed the balls to Hannah's feet.

She stood still for a second, slightly shocked, before giggling. "That tickles, a bit, although in a good w-ah! How weird." It was rather weird if Harry thought about it, as Hannah was very calmly doing a pirouette with her arms just flailing to the sides. "Does the fire know Salsa?"

"Of course," Harry muttered. "The question is, do _you_ know salsa?"

"One two three, five six seven . . . no I don't."

Harry laughed, and dispelled the balls. "You have to choose which form of salsa first, silly."

Neville arched an eyebrow, and asked, "What the hell?"

"Jak fills a limb with a desire to dance. It was developed originally as a Pureblood figured out that most of their child's inability to dance came from the fact that he was deathly terrified of being embarrassed. Jak forces you to overcome the embarrassment, although it won't teach you the dance in and of itself. For example, if Hannah was a trained ballet dancer, she would have done a more advanced and fun skill than the pirouette. Instead, she went for the rather cliched pirouette, as she recognized the move as a dancing one."

Hannah narrowed her eyes, before sighing. She glanced at her card, and motioned for Harry and Neville to go with her to the next class. She left, and they followed and listened as she spoke. "Yes, I was never one for ballet. Besides, my parents supported my OR addiction, so I never really cared–" She whipped her head toward Harry, who was looking puzzled. "Aw, you've never heard of OR, have you? Bet you don't have a circle set up, even."

"A circle? OR? I must admit that I have no idea what you're talking about," Harry replied ruefully.

"Well, a circle is how you access the web. And the web doesn't just contain information– well, yes, it does, but not just pure information. It also contains information that can be converted into games, or information that makes up songs, or impos. I'll build you a circle, it'll be sweet."

"You can build circles?" Neville asked, clearly amazed.

"Well, what did you think I'd been doing for the past eleven years of my life?" she asked grumpily. "I mean, I haven't memorized The Code, but I haven't been sitting on my ass, watching daytime impos. Please." She turned back towards Harry, and continued, "As long as you can obtain some chalk and a few sheets of The Code, I can draw you a circle. I have a few extra beta passes for this new OR, too– um, OR stands for Other Reality. They used to call them virtual realities, but they got way too complex. Some people decided that it wasn't virtual anymore, but a true reality, and coined the name. Anyways, these guys kind of revolutionized the world of realities, and my parents have been working with them to design the new AI system. It's really neat, actually, it uses twenty different sets of random number generators to keep it as random as possible for encounters, since RNGs aren't truly random. But, uh, we're there," she trailed off, clearly embarrassed about rambling on.

Harry realized that it was the great hall again, and asked Hannah, vowing to ask her later about where to get The Code, inquired, "What class is this?"

"It says class meeting on the schedule," Neville replied for her. "I bet it's something like discussing the rules and stuff."

Harry nodded, that sounded plausible enough. The seats were still arranged in the same way that they had been for the language selection, and the three of them took their seats. Noticing that their class seemed to be the first one there, Neville and Hannah spoke about some fantastic OR that they had both played, and Harry pretended to be half-listening, while actually he was practicing the Optomancy. He still couldn't do it half as quickly as he had hoped to be by now, although he had gotten it to the speed without the glasses that it had been with the glasses, but supposed that it was sheer luck that he had gotten to actually shifting his eyes at all within the week. He had, of course, spent the first few days actually figuring out the mechanics of an eye, and had actually dissected the replica of a giant's eye, which was around as big as two of his fists.

He closed his eyes, and concentrated, as always, on stretching or compressing his lens. Again, as always, it was taking a depressingly long time to change. He sighed, _knowing_ that practice made perfect, and if he wanted to impress. . . . Harry half started at the thought, wondering who he wanted to impress. It didn't really matter, he realized. Whoever he wanted to impress he was, going to. He _knew_ it. Harry returned to his effort, trying to imagine forcing his magic into his eyeballs. Problem was, he didn't know where his magic was, and he failed miserably.

Harry turned to Neville, and interrupted, "I know this might sound like a kind of silly question but. . . ."

He was in turn interrupted by Hannah, who jokingly reprimanded him, "Harry, Harry. There are no stupid questions, just stupid people."

Neville laughed, and Harry glared at Hannah, before rolling his eyes and continuing, "Is there some sort of central reservoir where your magic is located?"

Neville looked taken aback, and asked back, "You mean, in your body?"

Harry nodded, and Neville shook his head, no. "Magic runs evenly through your blood, oxygenated or non-oxygenated, so it's pretty much everywhere, since even if there aren't veins or arteries in a certain place, there are still capillaries. Of course, magic is going to be strongest in the veins and arteries, so typically when testing for magic, they check here," Neville touched the inside of his upper arm, "Here," indicating his inner leg with his left hand, "Or here," he finished, rubbing his jugular vein.

Harry nodded slowly, wondering how he could use that. Suddenly, he had an idea. Maybe it was like the runes. Since his eyes had an innate magic, he simply needed to bring it out. He closed his eyes again, and forced himself to relax in his seat. He thought to himself,_You're already in there, right? Might as well do some work. I definitely could've used you earlier, when I was caught half-blind at the sorting. _Concentrating on his eyes, he felt something different. Almost like something had clicked into place. Opening his eyes, again, he reached out with his imaginary magical fingers, running through his eyes, and bit back a triumphant yell as his sight blurred, much quicker than before. Harry set them back to where they had been before, and did the exercise three more times with his newfound skill, before the rest of the classes filed in. When he was finished, he felt fairly tired, his eyes watered, and he had to fight the desire to keep them closed, but he felt like it was worth it.

As the last students found seats, a short and slightly chubby woman walked onto the platform. She tapped her throat with her wand, and called out, "Good morning!"

"G'morning," they replied in unison.

"Have a good day so far? Like Hogwarts?" she asked.

One voice, a few rows back from Harry, shot out immediately, "Yeah!" Everyone laughed, and the woman waited until everyone had stopped laughing before continuing again.

"Well, I'll tell the Headmaster, he'll make sure that problem clears up right away." There was another round of laughter, and again, she waited until everyone was quiet again, before continuing. "Once again, I welcome you to Hogwarts. I am Professor Wyrned, and I'll be teaching around half of you English. I am also the head of the first years. There are a few rules that I need to go over." She held a hand up, in a fist, before raising her forefinger. "First of all, you may not go into room 312 in R. Tower, unless you wish to die a horrible and painful death. It is the temporary teacher's lounge, while the old one is refurbished. Oh, right, R. Tower is our nickname for Ravenclaw Tower. H. Tower is Hufflepuff Tower, G. Tower is Gryffindor Tower, the Dungeons is Slytherin Tower," there were a few more titters in the crowd, but she didn't wait for them to pass before continuing, "and P. Tower is Professor's Tower. Heads of House, Professors Mcgonagall, Snape, Flitwick and Sprout, for Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff, respectively, will not live in P. Tower like the rest of the Professor, but instead reside inside their towers." She glanced down at the podium, presumably at a piece of paper, and continued. "Also, on Saturday and Sunday you will be able to do anything you want. However, to leave the castle farther away than Hogsmeade, you will need a parent release form. All trips to Hogsmeade and to the F. Forest need to be accompanied by a teacher. You may not travel more than five miles into the forest."

After again glancing down at the podium, she outlined the merit point system, and mentioned an option that truly intrigued Harry, the option to negotiate with the head of house for a new reward, in exchange for points. She began talking about the Challenges, which Harry had already heard about from Neville, and he decided to practice some more with his eyes, which were aching much less.

After only two more repetitions of the lens trick, Professor Wyrned asked if there were any questions. One girl in the back asked, "Where are our birds?" Harry had, indeed noticed that his Raven wasn't in the cage when he had gone to his room the night before, but had assumed that it had somehow managed to get itself out of it.

"In the Owlery, at the top of G. Tower. Any other questions?" There weren't any, and Professor Wyrned informed them that they all had the rest of the period as free. Within just a few minutes, everyone left the room. Remembering his mental note, Harry asked Hannah where she supposed he could get The Code, and she shrugged.

"Ask some of the teachers, at least one of them **must** have it, since there's a Circles class in the higher grades."

Harry nodded, and said nothing. They walked at a leisurely pace to the Greenhouse, Neville and Hannah still discussing various aspects of Wizarding Culture, and Harry practicing his Optomancy. His briefly wondered if he should be slightly disappointed at being a bit of a third wheel, but brushed it off. It didn't matter whether he **should**be disappointed or not, it mattered if he **was **disappointed. He _knew _that.

It had been a good day so far. He simply hoped that his relatively good luck with professors kept up.

** A/N: Okay, so it's a little late. Okay, so it's a lot late. Okay, so going to camp actually made me slow down with the updates. However, I HAVE finally updated, (although it's only half of what I had planned on updating- I realized that if I went through the entire day it would be far too long, and take another three months to update. This also happens to be my longest chapter yet, I think, although it's a transition chapter. I'm going to try to avoid describing too many of the classes, although it's what I find to be the most interesting, and keep to the challenges, and the plot, so that I can get to the good stuff, exampli gratia, year four. Not that year four is going to be fun or anything. looks from side to side edgily)**

**Anyways, it's reviews that remind me that I'm actually supposed to be writing a story, so I wouldn't mind if you pressed the button, even if it's just to write something along the lines of, "ew, you suck. Man I'm glad that I'm not you because you must have small boobs... you homo sapiens sapiens." Don't worry, I won't be offended, since, yes, I do suck popsicles, yes I would be rather flat-chested for a girl, so it's good that I'm not one, and, finally, because, yes, I am, in fact a Human.**

**tips hat Good night, and good luck. /tips hat**

** (man, it irritates me the way they don't let non-text into the story.)  
**


	7. First Day: Part Two

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Seven

As the trio arrived at the first greenhouse, they first thing that they noticed was the slightly mildewy smell that came from being perpetually damp. "Ugh, it stinks," Neville muttered. Hannah nodded too, although Harry didn't mind it too much. His cupboard had been close enough to the basement, which flooded regularly with English weather, that it had perpetually smelled pretty much like this. Suddenly, from behind a tree popped out a white haired and wrinkly witch, with a mischievous smile.

"Well, smite me. If you aren't Alice's very image. Did she ever marry that dodgy bloke Frank?"

Neville pursed his lips, barely refraining from all-out glaring. "Yes," he said through clenched teeth, "He's my father."

"Pity what happened to them. You know, I used to be friends with your grandmother, before she started wearing that atrocious hat," the woman continued.

Neville bit his lip. Harry guessed that it was to prevent a sneer from appearing on his face. He replied, "She's still hoping that the eye of Ra will burn Lestrange with fire and brimstone." He breathed in slightly, and with a forced smile, finished, "It _is_ a sort of horrible hat, though."

"Sort of? I hadn't seen its like since Grindelwald bound a live one to his hat in his madder years of life. After being a Dark Lord, that is. A bit of luck that Dumbledore hit him with the memory eraser, though." She turned to Hannah, and scowled a bit. "And you must be Nicholas' daughter. He was never a fan of Herbology. I think his low point was when he arranged to turn Greenhouse 3's glass back into sand, even though he was well out of the program by then."

Hannah looked slightly nervous, and laughed sort of half-heartedly, slightly disturbed by her sudden turn back from benevolent teacher.

The woman turned her eyes towards Harry. "Ah yes, and the spawn of Lily and James Potter. James was always a Transfiguration and Combat enthusiast, which was a pity, since he was a Potter, but Lily reached out into Potion making, and so, was of course forced to take some Herbology classes. Although I never personally had her as a student, my colleagues were exceptionally proud of the diligence with which she handled some of the more complex plants. Such a pity what happened to them."

"Yes," Harry breathed, a sharp feeling of loss suddenly penetrating him. "I would have _loved_ to have known her." It was slightly peculiar, since after having grown up without parents, it seemed peculiar to feel the loss, but the loss felt right, it felt comfortable, and he accepted it.

The elderly woman stuck out her hands, one to Harry and one to Hannah, followed by one to Neville. "I'm Professor Pomona Sprout. You have a class here?"

"Yes ma'am," Neville answered. "I'm Neville Longbottom, this is Hannah Abbot, and Harry Potter. We have you next period."

"Well, just make yourselves comfortable, I still have to finish caring for a few plants in Greenhouse 4." In less than a second, she sprinted off, just a blur.

"What the hell?" Hannah muttered.

Neville was rather dumbfounded as well, and stroked his chin. "No idea. Didn't know humans could move that fast."

Harry smirked, and offered, "Magic?"

Neville frowned contemplatively for a second, before nodding, slowly. "Most likely." Turning to Hannah, he asked, "Are there any gods that might support rituals like that?"

Not quite understanding the conversation, Harry was silent, but eavesdropped, realized that he might be able to glean some more information about wizarding culture from this.

Hannah glanced at something to the right, biting her lower lip. "Ugh, this was one of the searches I made over the summer, too, so I should know this. Um . . . most of the Greek pantheon have body enhancing rituals, and judging by her profession, might be Demeter or Persephone. Although I think that Persephone's ritual has to do with regulating your body temperature, I don't remember Demeter's."

"Mmm, and Longbottoms have always stuck to the gods of water, and none of them that I can think of will do that– but we agree that it was probably a ritual?" Neville asked.

"Yeah. But it's pretty hardcore that a **teacher** has performed a–"

Harry interrupted them, scowling. "What's a ritual?"

Neville looked at him, eyes wide, before striking his forehead, a look of realization on his face. "Oh, right, new to magic and everything. I keep on forgetting!" He shook his head woefully. "Well, you know how there are gods, right?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, like Zeus and Minerva. But they're just myths, right?" he asked.

Hannah shook her head slowly. "No one actually knows where they came from. Or, well, if someone **does** know, then they're not telling. They just started appearing some time, very long ago."

"There are varying theories, like that they're incredibly ancient vampires, but new information is leading us to believe that some gods have been along for longer than vampires, even!" Neville exclaimed. "People have suggested that they're just really powerful humans, and others have suggested that they're from other planets. However, we **do** know that no one knows where Merlin came from, and he became a god. Of magic, the primary, even before Thoth, who had reigned for who knows how many millennia. Us Brits are rather proud of that," Neville ended with satisfaction.

"But how does that relate to rituals?" Harry asked.

"Um, well, we think that Gods can change the universe, just a little, and not all that often. It seems like they only do it once very two millennia or so. For example, Jesus made this really neat cup that will instantly produce more wine, in an effort to end thirst. He's top god of healing, by the way, ever since Asclepias disappeared. However, back in the day, especially in Greece," abruptly, Hannah interrupted him.

"Wasn't it in Rome? Didn't Zeus just make the spear thrower with the lightning bolts?" she asked.

"Zeus was anomalous, since he was kind of the last of the Greek gods to become known. It was really in vogue to make rituals, and I think that all of the other Greek gods did. Poseidon has this neat one that lets to actually walk on water for brief amounts of time. Longbottoms traditionally like that one, since some of our spells can make an area pretty wet." As an example, he cast a spell that caused water to shoot out of his wand. He directed the water towards the plants for a second, before dispelling the charm. "So you can see why it would be nice to be able to walk on water. However, rituals often require difficult to obtain materials, like hen's breath or fish's toes, so it's unusual to see a teacher go through the trouble to go through with one even though she's not going to be doing very strenuous work."

"Especially since it didn't look like one that would be related to her work. Why would an herbology professor need that kind of speed?" Hannah wondered out loud.

Neville shrugged. "Very sensitive plants?" He rolled his eyes, and muttered, "Although why anyone would ever go through all of that trouble for some stupid plants, I don't really know."

Harry elbowed him playfully. "You're in front of a Potter, Longbottom. Don't knock the flora."

Neville rolled his eyes. "I doubt you keep up your _lawn_, much less your Whomping Willows, Potter," Neville joked.

Harry smiled serenely. While he Snape was tutoring him, he had started cultivating a bonsai Dream Orange Tree. Deciding to change the subject away from himself, he asked, "What do you think we'll do in this class?"

Hannah looked at him suspiciously, but said nothing, letting him go off topic. "Well, as the kind professor said," Hannah said, "Neither of my parents really had all that great an aptitude for Herbology, so they really didn't tell me anything that might let me be prepared. All I really know is that most herbs need water, soil, air, and sunlight to grow, with photosynthesis."

Harry smirked, feeling his headache go away. "Oh, I know that," he boasted. "Photosynthesis is the process of making glucose, from Photo, light, and synthesis which describes the chemical process." Harry knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "Although it's not technically synthesis, since it's not all converging into just one thing. Six water molecules combine with six carbon dioxide molecules, and form one glucose molecule as well as six oxygen molecules."

Hannah let her neck muscles fall slack, as she looked up at Harry in disbelief, her bangs falling in front of her eyes. "Did you just learn that in preparation for Herbology?" she asked in wonder.

Harry smiled, and shook his head. "Nah, got that before I learned about the wizarding world."

Neville looked at Hannah, and speculated, "Well, you **do** have to be more intelligent if you don't know about the magical world already."

Hannah was about to reply, but Harry beat her to it. "Yeah, I guess I'm just a genius, pure and simple, eh?" He said, laughing. It was a good answer, even though he could cut down on the bragging a little bit. Very confident. Confidence was great. He _knew _it.

Hannah laughed a little, and rolled her eyes. Neville laughed too, and looked out the window. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he muttered, "Look."

Harry did, taking the opportunity to practice his optomancy, quickly stretching his lens. Out the window, he saw several kids coming towards the greenhouse. Stretching his lens a little more, and straining his already strained eyesight, he recognized Dock's oval face. "Yeah, it's our class," he said, before returning his eyes to their previous position. His eyes burned, and he blinked quickly in an effort to relieve the pain. Hannah looked at him oddly, but didn't say anything.

After the rest of the kids had filed into the room, Sprout popped up again, and quickly began the lesson. Her full name was Pomona Sprout, she had taught at Hogwarts for seventy years. Harry started at that figure, before remembering that Snape had said that Wizards and Witches typically had longer life spans than the average muggle, maybe twice their longevity. As she spoke more about herself and gave a handout about course expectations, Harry tried to judge her age. Snape had explained that Wizards and Witches stopped aging the same way at around age 18. Taking another glance at his teacher, Harry estimated her age to be around 55, doubled it, and subtracted 20, as another nice, round number. His eyes grew wide as he realized that taking that into account, she was around ninety, and had been teaching at Hogwarts since she had stopped aging the same way.He idly speculated that she must've been a Hogwarts alumnus herself to have acquired what he now realized was such a prestigious position at such a young age– at around 20, most Herbologists would be getting ready to start a five or six year internship with a more experienced Herbologist, after finishing wizarding college. Hogwarts would be the only school that would allow her to gain her position at that age. Perhaps that was the reason for her having undertaken such a ritual.

He was jolted out of his thoughts as Sprout called out, "Mr. Potter?", clearly having moved onto class.

"I don't know, Professor," he calmly replied, although on the inside, he was in turmoil. He _knew_ that he should be making good first impressions.

Neville very slowly beat his forehead against his palm, as the rest of the class tittered. "We're doing an icebreaker, Potter," he bit out between clenched teeth. "Your name and favorite food."

Harry flushed, and still very calm, stated, "Harry Potter, biscuits." There were some more titters, and he had a kind of half-hearted headache, accompanied by the feeling that he should've chosen something different. He scowled, and bit his lip. What would have been better? This had the benefit of being true, and it was probably the food that he'd be most comfortable making for himself. His headache went away, and he concentrated on Sprout.

"Well, that's pretty much all that I had planned out for today. I want all of you to look up two spells in your Standard, though, the one for watering plants and the dirt repellant. Better write it down, Greengrass, or you won't remember it."

Harry thought for a second, wondering what Standard was, before realizing that it was probably the Standard Book of Spells, and whispered it to Neville as he slowly raised his hand in confusion. He nodded in agreement, and put down his hand again. An attractive girl popped the question, and Sprout gave the answer that Harry had expected, along with a quick explanation of te setup of the book. It was actually several very brief books with the rudimentary charms from a variety of subjects– it would be insane to think that children could memorize five hundred spells for just one year, there were really around fifty spells for each subject, which explained to Harry why he hadn't heard of the Vodou spells before. He internally reprimanded himself, and nodded at Sprout's suggestion to use the pop-out illustrations.

"Holy shit," Neville whispered to Harry excitedly.

Harry quickly took his attention away from the professor, who was dismissing the class, and towards Neville, who was staring somewhere else. "What?" he hissed back.

"Look at that girl! She's beautiful!"

Harry looked, and decided that yes, the girl _was_ indeed beautiful, the girl who had asked about the Standard. "So? You told me to fear beauty, that it could be simulated with Potions."

Neville rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, didn't you hear her last name? Greengrass? They're like Potters, I'm fine."

Harry's eyes lit up when he heard the word Potters. "How so? Herbologists?"

Neville gave him a funny look. "No, Hunters. Why Herbolog– oh, right, Potters used to be Herbologists, way back when. Anyways, the Greengrasses have been Huntresses for hundreds of years, and you Hunt with Combat Magic, not with love potions and a pretty face, Potter. Come on, she can join."

"Join?" Harry asked, taken aback. "But we already have two Hunters," he murmured, "Shouldn't we branch out?"

Neville smiled and shook his head, clearly pleased with himself. "Nah, we can have one intel and three combat types– my uncle Algie said that 5 combats and two intels is pretty standard procedure, a 2:5 ratio. 1:3 is only seven hundredths off from that. Besides, us Combats are typically more versatile. Depending upon the challenges, a more specifically based person could be a hindrance. Good?"

Harry reluctantly nodded, and Neville walked over to Hannah, who shrugged, before gesturing for Harry to follow him over to where Greengrass was located, bending over a flower, apparently to smell it. Harry scowled, remembering having seen it before, probably in A Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, although unsure of what exactly it was. Neville came a little closer, and noticing him approach, Greengrass straightened up.

"Hey," Neville breathed, clearly somewhat flustered by how attracted he was to her. Harry supposed that she was very beautiful, yes, but didn't feel any sort of attraction toward her at all. "I'm Neville Longbottom, and I'm making a quartet in preparation for the Hogwarts challenges. We already have Potter, who's great, and Abbot, who's a haxor. You want in? Three Hunters and a researcher would make a great team."

She smiled politely, adorably tilting her head to one side. Ignoring Neville, she moved her right hand towards Harry's, and he shook it firmly. "Daphne Greengrass," she murmured.

"Great." He replied, alluding to Neville's introduction. She laughed lightly, and Neville sent Harry an edgy look. He ignored it, in favor of the plant that she was clutching in her left hand. It had a sturdy stem with opposite heart-shaped, gray-purple leaves. The flowers were white and occurred in several clusters toward the tip of the stems. He resolved to look it up in his book.

Daphne, still ignoring Neville, asked Harry, "Why me?"

Harry replied somewhat monotonously, still slightly wary of her, marking off notes on his fingers. "Well, first off, we wanted two boys and two girls, we already have Neville, myself, and Hannah, who's a girl. Second of all, we wanted a clean sweep of the houses, so that we wouldn't have any two people who were competing between themselves for the win. Third of all, we wanted someone in our core class, and fourth of all, you're beautiful."

At the last, she gave the light laugh again, and Neville's cheeks turned red. Turning back to a slightly red Neville, she gave him a smile. "I'm in. You make quick work."

Neville let out a small sigh of relief, and smiling, said, "Well, now that we're four, let's get lunch– I'm starving."

The four of them made their way back to the great hall, and although Harry felt fairly at ease, and Hannah seemed to be lost in thought, he could clearly see that Neville was relatively agitated, and that Daphne was enjoying his agitation, perhaps to hide her own discomfort with the arrangement. He tried to look at it from her perspective, and decided it was probably more than a little weird to be approached by someone simply for your name, although Neville had done the same thing to him. In retrospect, he probably should've felt a little more offended, although at the time, he was just happy to have a friend in the school. It was a good way of thinking about it.

They arrived at the great hall, and sat down at one of the small four person tables. Harry tried to make polite conversation with Daphne, since Neville seemed to be feeling too shy to start anything himself, and was surprised to hear that Daphne had hated their Charms teacher.

"She's just too forceful," Daphne complained, ripping her ham sandwich into small pieces, before eating the bite-size pieces.

Harry thought back to the class, and couldn't really see what she meant. "Well, I see what you mean," he lied, "But she pretty clearly knows what she's talking about. Those Vodou spells that we covered weren't touched by the Standard, and I have to say that the vanishing boat exercise was really neat."

Daphne shrugged, Neville looked at his lap, and Hannah bit her lip, still engrossed in thought. Harry sighed inwardly, and whispered to Neville, "Have fun. I'm gone."

Neville abruptly raised his eyes again, wide-eyed in fright, but Harry ignored him, in favor of asking Hannah to go with him to find the Code. She smirked, "I was just thinking about that," she murmured, before letting herself be led to the head table, where the teachers were seated.

Harry looked around for a second, before seeing Snape arguing heatedly with a huge black woman, with the head of Gryffindor House looking on with amusement. "No, you stupid broad," Snape hissed, "Moonstone is quite clearly turned mostly ineffective by growing moss over it, it was shown in those papers from a few years ago. Don't you remember that bruise concealing paste didn't disappear when exposed to sunlight!"

She countered, "That was only type A moonstone. Type B moonstone turned perfectly cl–"

"Type B moonstone also creates a bruise concealing potion that conceals the bruises by moving them to your lower back and _then _concealing them, and badly! It's a completely moot point!" He interrupted angrily.

"Not in the least! You just need to add orange peel as a reagent, you know just as well as I that the citric acid–" She replied back triumphantly.

"Yes, yes, that concentration of citric acid will make the potion static, but–" Noticing Harry for the first time, he nodded shortly at Hannah in acknowledgment, before asking Harry, "Could you please explain to Professor Johnson exactly why you can't just add in orange peel and make everything wonderful? We looked at this just last week, it was one of our examples for why you have to do research on every material before you make substitutions."

Harry bit his lip before nodding slowly. "Well, you can't use oranges or any of their parts in most healing potions, because dark faeries are attracted to pain, oranges, black, extreme cold, strong shadows, and magic. Three are included there."

The woman sneered at Snape, "Using kids to fight your battles, Snape?"

"Answer the question, Professor Johnson. It'll be so much more crushing when a student proves you wrong." Snape smirked.

She grimaced, before growling out, "All you need to ward away pain faeries is a stronger acid than citric, maybe something with hydrochloric or sulfuric acid will suffice."

"But if you have that much acid in a paste, then it'll burn away some of the skin," he replied calmly, his fingers twitching behind his back. _Be calm, be calm_, he felt being whispered to him soothingly. He forced his fingers to still, and slowly brought them to his sides. He barely managed to keep from smiling at his good work. He _knew_ that he was making progress.

The professor's eyes stared forward blankly, as she thought it over in her mind. "Fuck," she muttered darkly.

"Language," Snape reprimanded smugly. "You're supposed to be a role model here, Professor Johnson." Turning to Harry, he gave him a small smirk, before asking, "Is there something that you need, Mr. Potter?"

"Do you know from who I could obtain a copy of the Code, Professor?" Harry asked.

Snape let out a low, "Hmm," before slowly nodding his head. "I believe so, Mr. Potter." He concentrated for a second, before pulling a small box out of his sleeve, and handing it to Harry, who grabbed, with a thankful smile on his face. "Now, typically I'd require a merit point for that, but for your advanced Potions knowledge for a first year–" at this, Johnson cursed again, and Snape's smirk grew a little bit, and he continued blithely, "I think you've earned this."

Harry thanked him profusely, before handing the Code to Hannah and walking back to the table. He heard Mcgonagall softly exclaim to Snape, "You're good. Very good, Severus," and could practically feel his accompanying smirk.

She examined it for a second, before exclaiming. Harry turned to her and raised an eyebrow questioningly. She replied, "That professor gave you a really nice copy of the code! It has a built-in developer and evolutionary steel doors!"

"In layman's terms, please," Harry asked as they neared closer to the table.

"Well, you can make your own sites and programs, without making any more circles, that's the developer, and the metal doors are like burning firewalls that keep creepy dudes out. You get it?"

"I think," he replied slowly.

She smiled, and ended, "Well, the long and short of it is that it's better than something you're usually going to give away."

As they got to the table, Harry felt a tug in his mind, and he absentmindedly pulled out the chair for Hannah, as he said, "Well, I did help him show up that teacher, whoever she is. I hope that she doesn't become my teacher. That would be uncomfortable."

"I'm sure she was impressed, Harry, not aggravated," Hannah reassured him. He made a noncommital noise. "I know _I _was impressed," she continued, "How did you know that professor anyways?"

Neville, looking very uncomfortable, forced his way into their conversation. "Who? What happened?"

"Professor Snape was the professor who checked up on me every day after my birthday. He taught me everything I know. And for your other questions, Neville, I needed to get a copy of the Code from him." Turning back to Hannah, he asked, "When do you think it'll be ready for usage?"

"After this free. And I can install the OR I told you about, if you want."

Daphne had been leaning coolly back in her chair, but at this, she leaned forward abruptly. "You play ORs?" she asked quickly, her eyes lighting up.

"Um, yeah," Hannah replied, clearly not expecting the outburst.

"Britannica?"

"Yeah..."

"What level?"

"Just 27. I stopped after Time Warp came out."

"Oh, I play both."

Neville laughed, silently and somewhat hysterically, and whispered into Harry's ear, "I spent five minutes making up this bullshit about how much I love flowers, just to learn that she only has an interest in them for their utility, and now it turns out that we had a common interest in my favorite pastime. Bollocks."

As Harry laughed at Neville's depression, the two girls' excitement crescendoed at finding another expert at their favorite thing in life, before dying down slowly as they ran out of things to exclaim about. "Well, anyways," Hannah finished, "I happen to have keys for the beta-test version of The Ones Who Lived."

This sparked some more excitement as Daphne's eyes lit up again, this time with an unholy gleam, as she pummeled Hannah with questions, and Hannah replied to the best of her ability. "I'm a bit of a closet OR freak, you see," she explained, "And The Ones Who Lived seems like a perfect mix of plot, user interaction, and caps on people playing for too long. No longer than four hours, which is one hour in the real world, and a post-apocalyptic storyline. It's going to be amazing, I tell you."

Glad that Daphne was finished, Hannah quite happily gave her one of the keys, and Daphne scurried off to install it on her circle. Similarly, Hannah ran off in order to complete Harry's circle, leaving Neville and Harry alone. "Still happy with your decision?" Harry asked Neville snidely.

He held his head in his hands, and shook his head 'no'. "Well, it's too late now," Harry reprimanded him. "Just be more careful next time. Can you explain the je te souviens thing now?"

Neville sat straight up again, and nodded sharply. "Come on, Harry, I'll find us some unused classroom. I think I saw one near the great hall."

Neville had indeed seen an unused classroom near the great hall, and after they reached it, he motioned for Harry to sit down, before pulling over a chair and seating himself a few feet away. "You know how your parents died?" he asked abruptly.

"Yeah, Voldemort killed them," Harry replied quickly.

"And you know how Voldemort tried to kill you, but couldn't?" Neville asked. Harry nodded slowly, and Neville continued, "That's the secret. Voldemort had a cult following that might have targeted you if they knew, and people might want to study a child who could survive the killing curse. Besides–" Neville laughed a little, sheepishly, and looked off to the side. "Who you are– what you are, someone who can survive certain death at a young age, is legendary. People like _Merlin_ do that. His jugular vein was allegedly torn through by a white dragon, and although all accounts say that he bled more gallons of blood than he could possibly have in his body as an infant, his wound sealed up, and he was fine with an hour. He later used the same dragon to receive prophecies from Dagda." He stood up again, and started to pace. "Ausar did it too. He showed signs of extremely strong magic at the age of around one, and his brother Set jealously hacked him into fourteen pieces. He went into a sort of suspended animation, and was later reassembled by his sister Auset, at which point in time his pieces _autonomically__fused back together and he regained consciousness as a two year old._ His first words after coming back were 'No no no no no.' Weird much?"

Harry sat there, slightly stunned. He briefly wondered why Snape hadn't told him this, but decided that he probably hadn't had a reason to. "Fuck," he whispered, staring at the back of his hand, still trying to comprehend everything that Neville had said. He bit his lip, and considered his words, before asking, "So who knows? And why?"

Neville took a pensive look. "Well, there was an Order, that fought Voldemort. It was mostly hunters who did it in their free time. My parents were part of that, and were later tortured into insanity by Voldemort's closest followers, so that's how I–"

"Holy shit!" Harry muttered.

Neville nodded, before continuing, "So probably, people who were in the Order, or who personally lost a family member to Voldemort know. My grandmother didn't become informed until after Voldemort disappeared, so she only has one contact in the Order, Mrs. Bones. People who were in the Order quietly became allied with House Potter, which means all sorts of great stuff for you, I'll explain that later, and will say 'Je te souviens', which is a mangling of French for 'I remember'. Apparently, some drunk bastard knew a little French, and suggested it on the grounds that it had class, no one had the heart to correct him, and it stuck." Neville sighed. "Pity, really." Seeing that Harry had nothing to say, he began to describe alliances. "Well, You're known by your House, or Clan, which is a patri- or matrilineal family. Your father was a Potter, and therefore you're a Potter. If you had had a sister, she would have been an Evans." He sat down again, and absentmindedly twiddled his fingers a little, before he started talking again. "Since my House, the house of my father and grandfather, is Longbottom, we are honor bound to protect you under any circumstances, and aid you in any and all financial endeavors. You are typically required to do the same for us, but since you're still not old enough to make that kind of a decision, it's a one way alliance, and could, hypothetically, be broken off at any time. Usually, in a full alliance, that happens when a Clan changes so that its fundamental beliefs are completely counter to that of the allied House. The most important thing about alliances though, is the protecting part. If the heir to an allied House dies when an ally could have been protecting him or her, especially when it's the only heir, when it's a remarkable heir, or if there isn't a current Head of the House, then **so** much dishonor falls on the allied house that it's not even funny."

Harry bit his lip in thought again. "So . . . why would so many people be willing to ally themselves with House Potter? Where's the benefit?" he asked.

Neville grinned, slightly ferally, showing nearly all of his teeth. "There have been many books written about another theoretical death defying boy. One of the most popular was a children's book designed to introduce the basic premise to small children. It was called 'The Boy Who Lived' and featured a boy who could transmute nitrogen gas into gold with a flick of the wrist. Who wouldn't want to be allied to you, even for just the possibility."

Harry nodded, in agreement, before lifting himself up so that he sat up straight in chair again. He hadn't even realized that he had been slowly falling backwards off his seat. He felt a small twinge in his head, almost as if a reminder not to be slovenly. "Is this going to have any kind of impact on my life in general at Hogwarts?" Harry asked, shaking his head to clear it.

Neville looked to the right as he thought. After around ten seconds, he shrugged his shoulders. "You'll probably be invited to a few more parties, although since we're Firsties, we shouldn't really expect to be going to **any** parties. After your next birthday, you'll start getting your mail as heir of your House, and you'll be required to attend a lot of weddings and funerals. At this point in time, no, I don't think so." Neville smiled a little, a real smile, his first one since the beginning of the conversation, and snorted. "Unless the Headmaster is the head of the Order too, in which case you probably can't be expelled."

Harry laughed too, and after Neville ascertained that Harry didn't have any more questions, the two of them went their separate ways, Neville to the lake, and Harry to his room, in order to spend the rest of his free period productively.

When he got back to his dorm, the first thing he did was get out his copy of 1000 Herbs, and look up the flower that Daphne had been clutching in her hand. It was lupusnip, a cross between Aconite and Catnip, and was an ingredient in most potions for entrancing wolves, or werewolves. He stared blankly at the definition, before cursing softly. It all made sense now. She was at Hogwarts to learn how to hunt werewolves, and similar creatures– maybe vampires too. The beauty, the lupusnip– He thrust his hand against his forehead repeatedly. "Damnit Neville, there's more than one way of hunting." Harry shook his head, and muttered, "Neville, you poor sod, you should've gone with Dock."

He lay in his bed for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do, and ended up deciding that he should let Neville figure it out by himself. He was probably too infatuated with her to believe it, anyways, Harry figured. "Fucking preteens," he whispered to himself.

Sitting up, he decided to do his homework. He re-familiarized himself with the spells that they were required to know for Herbology, and skimmed over most of the section that was assigned for history homework, before his headache got quite bad, and he had the presence of mind to cast the time spell. He realized that he had only ten minutes to get to his next class, which was on the sixth floor of a different tower, and sprinted to his class, ending up only three minutes late for class, and panting hard. He dragged himself in, and grabbed an empty seat next to Neville.

Although the class was titled Combat _Magic_, the class itself was mostly an overview of what they were going to do over the year, followed by a brief lecture about playing to your strengths in a duel. The teacher was a man built like a football player, who had informed the class that he was a former Auror, a kind of government hired hunter, and that if anyone messed around in his class, then he or she might find a horse's head in his or her bed. Harry had laughed at this, but stopped when he realized that the Auror wasn't even smiling, and that he was the only person in the class who was laughing.

Harry felt a headache building up, once again, and resolved to pay more attention to facial cues. He was quite happy to feel his headache recede again, and was in positively chipper spirits when they ran off to magical transportation.

When they arrived, discussing the pros and cons of the various modes of transportation offered, they noticed a frazzled twenty-something man, apparently a TA, being coached by a hard-faced woman.

The woman ran off inside, and the man sighed, watching the children play around on the fields. At around 2:37, through the energetic use of a voice enhancing charm, "Sonorous", Harry muttered under his breath, and an enormous amount of wheedling and yelling, he managed to herd them towards the edge of the field, where he began calling roll. When he was around half way through the hundreds of kids, the hard-faced woman stalked back out, and rolling her eyes, took the list of names away from him. She whipped out her wand, and cast a spell on herself, causing five copies of herself to step out of her body. Using the voice enhancing charm, she commanded the crowd, "By last name, A through F in front of me, G through K my neighbor, L through P the middle woman, Q through U the next, and V through Z the last woman. Hurry it up!" She finished abruptly.

Harry and Neville walked over to the middle woman, where Neville was called fifth. After an enormous number of M names, Harry's name was half called out, but the word was ended before she finished the last syllable. "This is idiotic," could clearly be heard, muttered through the lesser voice enhancing charm before, "Mr. Potter, come here, and I'll correct your schedule."

Neville gave him an odd look, and Harry returned it, before walking up to the woman.

"Get out your schedule," she said through the voice enhancing charm, before wincing, and dispelling it. "Get out your schedule," she repeated. He did so somewhat reluctantly, and she was about to tap his schedule with her wand, before she looked him in the eye again, and asked, "You _are_ related to James Potter, right?" Harry nodded slowly, and she turned her attention back to his schedule, tapping it and changing it to _'2:35-3:20–Windstaff(OS)Hooch_'. "Imagine sending a Potter to choose his transportation . . . ridiculous," she said under her breath. Handing him back his schedule, she looked him in the eye, and said, "You have the rest of the period off, but you're going to have to meet back in the Great Hall at 3:20, for your extracurricular activities." She cast the voice enhancing charm on her voice again, and called the next name, clearly dismissing him.

Harry went back to where Neville was standing, and at his quizzical look, shrugged his shoulders. "I have the rest of the period off, I'm going to do some exploring. I'll meet you back in the Great Hall." After an affirmative nod from Neville, he jogged back to the castle, where he began to wander around aimlessly.

After around five minutes of mindless walking, he ran into a ghost, who he asked where the library was. The ghost thought for a second, before replying in all seriousness that it could be gotten to from anywhere in Hogwarts simply by touching your fingers to the wall and saying, "El Bibliothéque". Somewhat skeptically, Harry touched the wall, and whispered the words. Within seconds, he was whisked away through his fingers by the same mechanism that had taken him to platform nine and three quarters.

He appeared again, and was quite startled by the enormous array of books that instantly appeared before him. A few meters away, Snape suddenly came into existence. This being a relatively common occurrence for Harry, since he had done this several times while staying at the Cauldron, Harry simply nodded hello.

Snape nodded back, and asked, "Don't you have class right now?"

Harry shrugged. "Well, it was choosing your form of magical transportation, and the teacher kicked me out," he replied.

Snape cocked an eyebrow for a second, before nodding slowly in understanding, and cursing under his breath. "Of course," he murmured, "All Potters are bonded to a windstaff tree when they're born. Your staff was shipped to Hogwarts the moment you got accepted." He shook his head. "I should've told you, Mr. Potter, my apologies."

Harry, interested by this revelation, informed the Snape that it was fine, and asked, "Do you know where I could find it?"

Snape nodded, and twisted his right hand quickly, in the hand signal that Snape had taught Harry for use in Diagon Alley. He had told Harry that he wouldn't let him leave the room without a firm understanding of the hand signals, and as a result, Harry instantly recognized it as the command to follow, and did so without question.

Snape led Harry out two gigantic doors from the library, and then through a short corridor, which spat the two of them out in the Great Hall. The two of them continued out to the fields, where Snape walked to an enormous stone building. They walked in, and followed the signs that read, "Student Equipment" until they found an enormous room, the size of a gymnasium, and looked through the P section until they located the Potters' windstaffs. There were then twelve in there, and it took a little time for Harry to find the one that _felt_ right to him.

Turning it over, Harry nodded. There it was, his name, etched in golden letters across the slightly wider back, 'Harry James Potter'. As he gripped it, he felt something twitch within him. It was indescribable for Harry, although if he had had a wider range of experiences, he would have described it as meeting a very old friend again, after a long time away. It was wondrous.

He fought the urge to hug it to his chest, and simply looked up in question to Snape, who gave him a terse smile. "That greatly resembles your father's Windstaff. We were in the same Magical Transportation class for much of our time at Hogwarts." He began to leave the room, motioning for Harry to take the staff, and Harry quickly followed him, with a little trouble because of the size and shape of the staff, through several doors that eventually led to the 'Faculty Equipment Room'. Snape summoned his own staff to him, which was significantly larger, and made of black oak. Instead of walking back out the door as Harry had expected, Snape kept on walking through the room, until he reached a gigantic window. Whispering a password, the glass disappeared, and as the wind whipped around Harry, he suddenly became aware that they were on the third floor. Snape straddled his Windstaff, and Harry quickly imitated him.

Over the wind, Snape shouted to Harry, "The charm is _Vol_, the motion is kicking off with your dominant foot. Lean forward to accelerate, push the tip down for down, up for up, lean backwards to decelerate, lean left and right for those directions, and jump off for an instant brake. You and your Windstaff will keep moving forward, so it's not really a brake, or advisable unless you're extremely hardy. Ready? You go first."

Seeing that Snape was waiting for him, Harry quietly said, "Vol," and was rather surprised when the Windstaff generated a cushioning charm for his bottom, and lifted his feet slightly off the ground. He leaned forward slightly, and was pleased to see that it worked obediently. He let out a short sigh, before deciding that Snape was undoubtedly watching, to make sure that he wouldn't fall, and his body forward, out into the wind. He was quite surprised when he felt another cushion generate itself, this time behind his back, and as he felt himself jerk forward at an incredible rate, quickly reaching over the forest.

Harry managed to lean back enough so that he wasn't going any faster than he would be going at a walk on the ground, and as Snape quickly caught to him, slowly tried to turn himself around, so that he could maneuver himself towards the castle, in order to get to the Great Hall. He pulled his wand out of his pocket, and spoke the time spell. It told him a quarter after three, and he cursed softly, before accelerating to a running pace, still afraid to go at the intense pace of before. After a few seconds of trailing Harry, Snape pulled up next to him. "You'll spend the first year of Windstaffs learning how to maneuver them. However, the next few years, if you choose to keep looking at them, will be about casting spells with them."

Harry perked up at that, saying, "I hadn't realized that you could cast spells with things other than wands," finding that it was more difficult than it seemed to concentrate on maintaining a steady pace as well as keeping up a conversation.

Snape replied, "Mmm," pensively, and thought for a few seconds, before informing Harry, "Wands are magically natured, but Windstaffs are natured with gaseous fluids, and more specifically, the lightest gaseous fluids. If you were to take a picture of a Windstaff's hypothetical soul–it's like taking the derivative of a number, although I suppose you have no idea what that is–it would be the least dense gas in existence. It would approach zero density. Because of that, you could cast myriad levitation charms, lightening charms, or transfigurations into less dense materials, but even ice to water–impossible. Water to ice, easy. Anything that works with magic and something for long enough becomes similarly natured. The Vikings' boats became riddled with water natured magic, and it became necessary to use a dead man's boat as his pyre, in order to prevent their enemies from getting their hands on them."

Harry nodded quickly, and asked, "Then why did they die out, if they had such powerful foci?"

Harry couldn't see it, as he was too busy avoiding turning or speeding up his Windstaff, but he could practically feel Snape's malicious grin. "It's never a good idea to rape all of your enemies' wives, and then leave them alive. If you're in such a position, chances are that you're pretty powerful magically, and by raping them, you're giving your enemies strong children in the next generation. Also, some of the stronger boats sometimes objected to being torched, and there is very little that is more deadly than a dragon of water and wood. It also eventually became the Vikings against the world, as nearly everyone converted to Christianity, and they were eventually overrun by the Christian Norse."

Harry gave a "Hmm," and bent the nose of the windstaff forward, slowly approaching the ground. Snape followed him, and used a shrinking charm on his winstaff until it was roughly the size of a collapsible umbrella, and slid it into his sleeve. Harry did the same, but put it in his pocket.

"Professor Snape," he said, "I have to go to the extra-curricular thing now, but could you show me later how to do a few of those charms while airborne?"

He nodded, and thought for a second, before deciding, "Bother me on Saturday, in the afternoon. We can get you a little more familiar with flying, and maybe you can test out of this course."

Harry's eyes lit up at this–an opportunity to test out meant more of an opportunity to explore different areas of magic, and he nodded in agreement, before waving goodbye to Snape and jogging into the castle.

Harry quietly entered the Great Hall, apparently in the middle of Dumbledore's speech. From what he could pick up from the rest of it, he had discussed the various activities that one could join. A few that he alluded to were some kind of equestrian club, a club centered around a game called gobstones, and quidditch club, which Harry gathered was a popular Wizarding sport. He ended his speech with a reminder to all students that they had to contact one of the leaders of the club that they wanted to join, and that it was possible to join some of the extra classes, but only for the first two weeks, and that a signed note from a parent or guardian was necessary, along with the money for it.

Harry had initially perked up at the words "Extra Classes", but sighed at the words "Parent or Guardian". He bit his lip, wishing that he could take the courses. Perhaps he could sign for them himself, since in a way he was his own guardian. Harry resolved to ask Snape about it later, and began to make his way out of the hall along with a hundred and fifty other chattering students, trying to find his friends among the crowd.

Suddenly, he heard the headmaster call his name. "Could Harry Potter please stay after?" his rumbled over the chatter. He heard someone laugh, and looking to his right, Harry saw that it was Neville. He rolled his eyes, and turned back towards, the middle, and Dumbledore.

Surprisingly, it was much easier going back towards the podium that had been temporarily erected in the Great Hall for Dumbledore to stand on, than out towards R. Tower, and within two minutes, he was standing next to the headmaster. "You wanted me to stay, sir?" Harry asked respectfully. He felt a slight pride in himself for being so polite, and listened attentively to what the headmaster said, growing happier and happier with each passing word.

"Mr. Potter, thank you for seeing me. Your . . . belated," Dumbledore awkwardly began. Harry suppressed a wince. ". . .Parents arranged for you to take whatever courses you wished if they died. Mr. Potter was a relatively prominent hunter, who quite obviously opposed a terrorist cell when you were born, so they made provisions for you to be educated in the case of their untimely demise. Their fears obviously came to pass, and you can do whatever you wish, by way of extra courses. They signed all of the necessary forms, and have set up a special vault for paying for them. Your father asked me to make sure that you took Experimental Herbology and some kind of hunting course, such as Dueling, or Criminal Psych, and your mother requested general Healing and Healing Potions. You can drop these courses at any time after you've taken at least one of the classes. It is advised that you examine the other courses offered as well, in order to suit your _own_ interests. Your healing class is at four o'clock sharp. Your extra courses schedule will be delivered to you tomorrow morning. Are there any courses that you know that you want to take now?"

Harry, nearly glowing with excitement at the thought of the courses–of course he would be taking Healing and Healing Potions–asked the headmaster, "How can I find out what courses I can take?"

The headmaster frowned, confused for a second, before he nodded in recognition, and pulled a gigantic heap of papers from his sleeve. After looking at them for a second, he wordlessly pushed the papers together, until the hundreds of papers looked like one. He then handed the piece of paper to Harry, and instructed him to touch the section that interested him.

With a little closer inspection, Harry noticed that the paper was a table of contents, and looked up in order to ask Dumbledore's opinion on which area to do things in, when he realized that the headmaster was already walking away. Harry checked the time–it was 3:35, and hurried off to find his group before 4 o'clock.

Harry found them at ten before four, sitting on the front steps to the Great Hall, looking at the lake. Even though they had only known each other for a short time, he felt that there was a comfortable silence, and he was sad that he had to break it. "Hey," he said quietly, sitting down.

Neville jumped up, and turned his head towards Harry, muttering nervously, "Bloody hell, don't do that."

Hannah coolly cracked her neck, and tilted her head toward Harry's. "I have your circle, Potter." She fumbled around in her sleeve, before pulling out a small piece of paper, which she quickly enlarged by tapping it twice with her wand. "Don't worry, it's sturdier than it looks." Placing it on the ground, she motioned for Harry to step onto it. He did so, and instantly, a translucent tile, a tenth of a square meter large, appeared at waist level, two thirds of a meter away from his body. Hannah instructed Harry to place his hand on the tile, and he did so, resisting the urge to remove his hand after the tile pricked his finger, drawing a bit of blood.

After a few seconds, another larger translucent tile appeared, littered with smaller tiles that read things like 'Games', 'Deleted', and 'Music'. "Okay Harry," Hannah said, smiling. "Press games with your hand if you want to get to the beta. It's called, very originally, 'Greek Letters for B.'" Harry was about to touch it, before he remembered his class. He reluctantly stepped off of the paper again, and shrunk it, putting it into his pocket. "Sorry, my parents apparently signed me up for some classes before they died. I have to go to Healing right now."

Neville laughed shortly. "Isn't it funny that you were called out twice today? You must be a pretty important guy, Potter," Neville needled Harry.

Harry sighed, and walked towards the castle, as Daphne asked Neville about what had happened to them during flying. Harry found a ghost who helpfully pointed him towards Hogwarts' healing wing, which was near the Great Hall for easy access. Harry didn't recognize any of the other four kids in the class, which went similarly to how the Charms class had gone, with the Healer showing them a basic accelerated healing charm for bruises on an owl that had run into a window by accident, and then explaining the theory to them. Most of healing seemed to depend upon knowing what it was that was healed, and they spent the rest of the hour examining the chemical make up and properties of blood. After class, Harry asked the Healer, one Hr. Trenchgoat, if he could give him the names of a few books to read to accelerate his learning, and Trenchgoat was only too happy to oblige.

Harry looked them up in Hogwarts' Library, which was organized according to the MARC21 Classification, and was slightly dismayed to find that they were all rather dry textbooks, but checked them out of the library anyways, deciding that if he ever ran out of other reading material, then he could default to them.

After Harry got back to his dorm, he immediately started doing his homework, which he spent two and a half hours on. Directly following that, he alternated between looking over the course catalogue and a book on Wizarding traditions until ten o'clock, at which point in time he changed into his pyjamas and went straight to sleep, dreaming dreams of dueling feet and freckles on palest skin

* * *

I've noticed that a lot of people have marked this under story alert. In my opinion, story alert is a kind of silly addition of ffn. If I write a sequel to this, which I intend to do, you won't have any idea, unless you have me on AUTHOR ALERT. I have zero story alerts, but 918 author alerts. Mimic me.

Edit: Thank you Draeconin for knowing that Britain actually uses the MARC21 method and notifying me about it, despite disliking my story.

This chapter might seem weird and bad because the last five pages I forced out with the help of NaNoWriMo, and I'm just generally exhausted from sleep deprivation. It's also unedited. (Not that any of my chapters are edited...) Speaking of which, if you want to beta, I'll email you a copy, but chances are that you won't get the chapters any quicker than anyone else.

Edit: Urk. _Two_ people told me that ice was less dense than water, and yet I still hadn't changed it. Well, I had changed it on my private copy of the story, but not on FFN, which is where it really matters. My apologies, and many thanks to the anonymous reviewer "Tungsten" and the other one, whose name escapes me at the moment.


	8. Silence is Golden

a/n: As should be pretty obvious at this point in time, I have failed at NaNoWriMo, even the fake NaNoWriMo that I assigned myself. le sigh However, I do have an update, sooner than usual. As I do not have a beta yet, there will be grammatical mistakes. Could you please point them out to me? One "A-man", who never logged in, mentioned many, many grammatical errors, but didn't specify where they were. Please do, readers.

* * *

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Eight

Over the next few days, Harry and his crew gradually became more familiar with each other, and set a time for practicing magic every other day together, and collectively pooling knowledge. Harry learned how to navigate to a site using a Circle, which was more difficult than it sounded, since it required drawing fifteen characters, each in a specific, and more often than not, differently colored chalk, that weren't limited to the English alphanumeric ones, but also included Cyrillic, Sanskrit, and Hebrew characters, in order to compensate for the much larger range of Hieroglyphics that were replaced a millennium ago. Thankfully, he could write down points on a small piece of paper and stick it to his Circle with the standard sticking charm, for later use.

On Wednesday, after a rigorous maths class, Harry's quartet played half an hour of four player ultimate frisbee, Harry and Daphne against Neville and Hannah. Harry and Daphne had won, after Harry proved to be an excellent runner, despite his obviously slight stature, and catcher of frisbees, and Daphne showed near perfect form in throwing frisbees, ending the game with a magnificent hammer. Neville and Hannah, however, had kept it a close game, keeping Harry's team off guard with seemingly random switches between short passes and long passes, and a willingness to dive to catch the frisbee.

A few second years had asked to play right before the free period had ended, and Daphne had lent them her frisbee, so that the four of them could play amongst themselves while Harry's quartet was in class. They had plans to meet after magic class, which the other group had howled in laughter after Daphne had mentioned their next class. "Have fun, kids," one of the four, one half of a set of twins in the group had encouraged, although his tone of derision gave Harry a certain level of apprehension for the course.

The four ran from the Fields to the entrance to the Great Hall, and over to where Dock, Smith, Kingsley, and Williams, another quartet that had formed in their class was seated. Their groups sort of formed an eightsome of kids, since the last group had seemed a little too aware of the necessary qualifications for attending the institution, and was, in a few words, filled with egotistical bastards. Dock had initially approached McAndrews as their Ravenclaw, but he had politely declined, saying that he preferred to study on his own, and that his field of research was a little too limited to really be of any use.

Sitting in the grass, and chatting with their friends, Harry was the only one who noticed their teacher arrive as he was practicing moving his eyes from farsighted to nearsighted and back to twenty-twenty. As the teacher swooped in on his windstaff , Harry tapped Neville on the shoulder, motioning towards him, and Neville quickly disseminated the information. The nine children, including the two groups and the loner, quickly stood to attention, while the last group kept on laughing and giggling between themselves.

The teacher, a tall, and well-dressed man quickly descended from his Windstaff, and quickly and quietly introduced himself as Nectarus and told the children who were quiet to adjourn to his room, which was room 28 in the North Tower, before flying off again, presumably back to the tower. The nine of them quietly got up and left stealthily, careful not to alert the other four to their absence.

After finding the North Tower, which was between R and G towers, they quickly found room 28, which was the only room that didn't have a class in it. In fact, it was completely dark, and after it was illuminated by a light charm from McAndrews, it was revealed that nothing was in the room except for four rows of seven chairs each, all facing a blackboard. Squinting, Harry saw that the blackboard was empty except for the rune Perthro in the lower left hand corner. He thought for a second, before taking a seat at a desk, and beginning to silently practice his optomancy.

The other members of his group chatted for a while, with only a few odd glances in Harry's direction, but after fifteen minutes, Dock's group and McAndrews left, assuming that the teacher was a total flake and had forgotten their class completely. A few minutes later, Hannah started trying to urge Harry to leave, but he in a fit of pique, he just ignored her, practicing suppressing the cones and activating the rods in his eyes, in order to see better in the light. After a minute of begging and pleading with the unresponsive Harry, the remaining three simply left the room, leaving Harry alone.

After half an hour's work, Harry had finally figured out way that he had to apply magic to force the cones to suppress themselves, and could activate the shorter, black and white wavelengths of rod eyesight within only a few seconds. He was working on activating and deactivating dark adaptation more and more quickly, when the teacher suddenly appeared in front of the blackboard. "You're very good, Mr. Potter," he rasped, before clearing his throat, and activating witch-lights on the walls of the room, and striding to the desk next to Harry, which he wandlessly transfigured into a teacher's desk, pushing the other ones out of their previously perfect arrangement, and sat down in the new plush chair,

"Thank you, Professor Nectarus," Harry replied calmly.

"Barely anyone gets it on the first try," he continued, "What tipped you off?"

Harry after finishing moving his eyes back into cone vision, he answered, "The rune in the corner, Perthro for silence and stoicism."

"Really?" he asked, seeming genuinely surprised. At Harry's affirmative nod, he noted, "Most people hear me breathing or see through my invisibility before they notice the rune, even though I had initially added the rune to make it easier. Have you learned the lesson?" he asked.

Harry closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly, before nodding. "Silence is golden," he said confidently.

The professor shrugged. "Close enough. It was actually 'Have patience, young padawan', but we can't all be perfect." Leaning back, and resting his feet comfortably on top of the desk, he asked Harry, "You ever hear of a magical threshold?"

Harry nodded. "It's where you can't use any more magic."

"You know how to make it larger?" The professor asked.

"Yes, professor. Practice, preferably with a core analyzer to avoid E.M.E." Harry responded clearly, remembering his lesson with Snape, and feeling satisfaction with his confidence.

"Damn, you're good," Nectarus said, laughing. "Well, I'll expect an essay on burnout and stuff by next week, at least a page, or 400 words, whichever is longer." Nectarus un-transfigured his desk, and shrunk and pocketed his chair, before turning to leave, as Harry groped around in his bag for his old essays.

"Could you wait for one second please, professor? I have a question about the essay," he asked. The professor nodded, and walked back over to Harry, sitting comfortably on one of the desks. Harry finally found his essay on burnout, and handed it in. "Is this satisfactory?" he asked.

"Prophetic much?" the professor grumbled. He sighed, and transfigured the teacher's desk again, re-enlarged the chair, and sat down. After skimming it over in a couple of minutes, he scrawled a big 'O' at the top of the paper, and handed it back to Harry. "Well, there's a threshold, and you can work to improve it, by practicing using your magic until you're almost out of magic. For example, when I was young, I'd practice by transfiguring pieces of wood into furniture, starting out small and getting larger as my threshold became higher. By the end of my Hogwarts schooling, I could transfigure a kitchen with a twig, I was so proficient and strong. That's the other way that you can more effectively use magic–become extremely proficient. That also comes with lots and lots of practice, but just knowing the theory is extremely helpful in itself."

Harry nodded, in understanding, before asking, "And what can you do now, Professor?"

Nectarus stroked his chin for a second, before responding, choosing his words carefully. "There are actually only eleven thresholds, in truth. You've passed the first threshold when you can first do controlled magic, and you can pass each consecutive threshold through practicing magic. When you pass every consecutive threshold, you'll experience a joy so joyous that it borders on painful, and you'll feel your magic grow. Typically, through practicing, you'll slowly build up a little bit of magic, but half of your total magic is gotten through passing thresholds. You can only pass through the third threshold after your twelfth birthday, the fourth after your thirteenth, and so on. You could theoretically pass through your second threshold right now. Understand?"

Harry nodded, and Nectarus finished, "Well, practice every night, and come back in three weeks, or when you pop your threshold. ."

Harry, chewing on his upper lip, asked, "Do you have a core analyzer?"

Nectarus nodded, and pulled a core analyzer out of the desk that he had transfigured. Harry looked at it skeptically, and Nectarus laughed. "_This_ is how much I can do now. Go, Potter. It's 3:20."

Harry gave a little half-bow with his head, and headed towards the door. Right before he left the classroom, Nectarus called out, "By the way! Potter!"

"Yes, professor?" Harry called back, stepping back into the classroom.

"10 points. You're very good," Nectarus awarded, smiling.

Harry, astounded at his good fortune, thanked him, stammering, and nearly missed the admonition to not spoil it for the other kids while he was running out before the professor could change his mind.

He met up with his group on the lawn, playing frisbee with the twins' group. Seeing him, one of the twins gave a feral grin, and hammered the frisbee to his twin, before, pulling Harry off to the side. "So late from Magic class, Potter?" he whispered to Harry.

"Er, yeah," Harry responded awkwardly.

"Any other class, I'd think that you were giving the prof head, but Magic class, in the first few weeks, I just think you're good."

"Thank you, Mr. . ." Harry began, wondering exactly who this was, and where this was going.

"Fergo. I'm George Fergo, and my brother is Fred Graham. We're the Fog and Gof twins. Odd ones, though we don't really like to say who's up or down. It keeps you on your toes. But back to you, Mr. Potter. Figured out magic class on the first day. How did you spot Nectarus?"

Harry shrugged. "I didn't, I out-waited him. The rune for silence and stoicism was written in the bottom left hand corner."

George gave him a funny look. "And you just happen to know the rune for silence and stoicism, eh? Love the runes?"

Biting his lip, Harry shook his head. "I've been working on silencing wards for the past few days. Nearly all of them are centered around Perthro."

George stared blankly at Harry's face for a second, before smiling. "Both of us think that sounds good. You want to join the Vikings?"

Harry cocked his head to one side, and queried, "The Vikings?"

"Yeah, the Vikings. We're a Ladder. That is, to say, a secret society comprised of several different groups, passing information. There are other ones, like the Greeks, which we were temporarily part of, the Japanese, the Igbo, loads. We're centered around mischief, fun, and illicit dealings. The Greeks, which our older brother Charlie Weasley is part of right now, is Philosophy and the Arts. The French are high fashion and snobbery. You get the drift?"

Harry nodded quickly. "Yeah, I think so." He paused for a second, before asking, "Why do you and your brothers have last names?"

"Fog and Gof have always had different last names, and the last ones were our uncles, Gideon and Fabien. They died fifteen years ago, so mum knew that if any twins were born to her, they would be Fog and Gof ones. Weasley is our dad's name," he answered, pulling a small ball with golden wings out of his pocket, and releasing it for a second, before catching it again and hauling it back in.

"I . . . what?" Harry asked eloquently.

George gave him a funny look, before his eyes went wide. "You're a _muggleborn_ and you came out of Magic class first in your class? Much better than usual."

Harry gave George a severe look. He was beginning to see that George was the kind of person who liked to jump to conclusions. "No, I'm not a muggleborn. I was just raised muggle."

George shook his head. "It amounts to the same thing, if you only learned about magic a couple of months ago. Bloody impressive. Anyways, to avoid running out, magical bloodlines run through blood, but also run through related blood, just in case, to a lesser extent. While the actual bloodline is strong, it sends signals to the related blood not to procreate, but when a bloodline dies out–off comes the lid, and the holder of the blood starts making that kind of baby. Baby pops out–or babies, in our case, and our blood starts sending the signal to stop making our kind of child. Capisce?"

Harry tilted his head, his face the personification of confusion. "Not quite. Your blood?"

George nodded seriously. "Yeah, my bloodline. See, bloodlines function matrilineally, or patrilineally, so your mother would have had a bloodline, as well as your father. You carry on your father's bloodline, which is his father's bloodline, and his father's father's bloodline, and so on. You have a sister?"

"No," he answered quickly.

George nodded in understanding. "So you carry your mother's bloodline, but can't use it at all. You're acting head of whatever your mother's line was. You know your mother's last name?" he asked.

"House Evans," he breathed, finally understanding Neville's comment.

George nodded again. "So if you have a daughter, then your daughter will be your wife's daughter, the next girl in line. If you have any successive daughters, the first will carry your mother's line, and you will be obligated to change her last name to Evans, and educate her in the Evans way as your mother would have seen fit. That happened for our uncles, who are sort of our fathers, and our mother had to pick up the slack."

"I think I understand," Harry said slowly, processing the information, "but what is the advantage of a bloodline? Why would you want it to stay alive?" he asked.

George seemed taken aback, but answered the question. "Well, bloodlines are full of all kinds of useful stuff. For example, our bloodline makes us odd twins, and gives us a sort of telepathic communication. There are also all of these neat tricks that only we can do, work with enchantments. You probably have a pretty passive one if you haven't noticed it yet, so I doubt it's going to be throwing fireballs, or walking on water."

Harry thought for a second, considering the Potter family history, and decided that it was probably something Herbology related. "Maybe, say, an affinity to, like, charms, or transfiguration," he asked, being intentionally vague, keeping in mind the admonition to keep secrets.

George nodded happily, and began again, "Yeah, you've got it. Really quite efficient, eh? But back to the Vikings. You want in? We have one group in every year, so that there isn't any infighting, and we don't have a group for your grade yet, so you guys could join. If you disbanded, all bets would be off, though, and you'd be the only person still in."

Harry logged this in his brain, and asked, "So what do you get out of it? And us?"

"We pass the Viking traditions on to the next generation, m'boy! That and camaraderie. You get our knowledge, and books." He seemed to think for a second, before asking, "Do you know what the books are?"

Harry shook his head no. "Assuming that you're not talking about regular books, then no."

George nodded his head thoughtfully. "Yeah, there are certain books, which you gain access to through another rite of passage. We have some of them. You want to obtain them. They're very, very good news."

Harry began walking back to the frisbee game. "I'll have to talk it over with my teammates." George nodded, and walked back over to his brother, who tossed Harry's team the frisbee, and motioned for his group to move out.

"What did he want, Harry?" Neville asked. As they got to know each other better, they had gradually switched over to first names, instead of last.

Harry described the Vikings invite, leaving out why he was invited, in order to avoid spoiling magic class, and citing their quick formation as the reason for why the Vikings were interested.

Neville gave a wide grin. "We're moving up in the world already, Harry! An invite to a selective club, and the Game in just two days! This is great."

Daphne briefly interrogated Harry on who they were, and her eyes seemed to light up at the words 'Fog and Gof twins', not at all allaying Harry's suspicions as to how the Greengrasses hunted, but in fact augmented them.

He shook off his fears, and they agreed to meet again at dinner. He walked back to his dormitory, and intending to read a bit, got out his book, when he remembered his circle. Slipping the book into his pocket, he got out his circle, enlarged it, and selected the "Games" option when he got the tiles to pop up again. Instantly, a question appeared on his screen: "Comfortable?" Harry thought for a second, before grabbing a pillow, and sitting down on it. The tile adjusted to his new height, and he selected the option: "Yes!". The next thing he knew, he was situated in small cottage, in a village off the coast of Air. After a few seconds of confusion, in which he wondered how he knew that, he realized that he had some memories that hadn't been there several seconds before.

"Whoa," he whispered. Thinking for a second, he 'remembered' that, of course, the memories had been implanted in his head by the innovative new AI system that incorporated some of the most recent Impo technology. A little more thinking along the line of innovation 'reminded' him that although he could only spend up to one hour in there per day, that one hour would be equal to four hours in game time. Incredibly excited at first, he thought of practicing magic as he had promised Nectarus in the world before he 'remembered' that magic, of course, worked completely differently in Element, the world that he was currently in.

Harry stood up from his pillow, walked to the door, and stepped out, when a giant tile appeared in front of his face, asking him to either choose a new face or keep his current one. After choosing his current one, almost as if acting under a compulsion, he walked towards the town square, which he 'remembered' walking to nearly every day of his life, but saw something peculiar there, a bored looking traveling Magi's school, with several different looking Mages lined up in front of it, looking quite bored. His recently acquired memories classified them instantly from left to right as Summoner, Necromancer, Illusionist, Druid, Sorcerer, and Healer.

Walking up to the Sorcerer, since he had only recently discovered that he _was_, in fact, a sorcerer, and the novelty hadn't yet worn off, he 'remembered' to bow low, and ask, "May I become your apprentice?"

The Sorcerer gave him a bored look. "You're not worth my time right now. Go clear out an infestation of giant rats. Once you've done that, and learned a spell, come back, and I'll let you become my apprentice."

Harry nodded, following his 'memory's' lead, and walked back to the house, thinking the particularly peculiar thought that this way of altering his memories was singularly boring and crude, although objectively speaking, it was quite intelligent, using the available resources. What other way would one alter memories more smoothly? Harry felt somehow smug, although he couldn't figure out why.

He sat down on his bed, and considered his possibilities. Should he do as the Sorcerer advised, and kill some rats? Or should he go off exploring into the wilderness? He rolled over idly, before standing up, and stretching. Looking back at the bed mindlessly, he noticed a book, and realized that even if he couldn't practice _practical magic_, he could at least study _theoretical magic_. Wasting no time, he quickly set to reading Purebloods are Better: For Mudbloods, and finished it in two hours. After quickly taking a break, in order to obtain his book on staffs, he returned to the OR, and spent the next two hours reading over the section on Windstaffs. Near the end of the chapter, he was rudely kicked out of the game, and presented with a tile in the real world that read in huge letters, "Get a life!"

Harry sighed, realizing that his four hours were up, and feeling particularly restless after four hours of straight studying, he picked up the shrunken Windstaff that he had taken to keeping in his room, and trudged outside to the fields. Picking a blade of grass, he used his staff to perform the minor transfigurations that he knew how to do, namely ones that simply stretched the item. In terms of difficulty of transfiguring, it went, size transfigurations, temperature transfigurations, inanimate to other inanimate, living to living, living to inanimate, and finally, the most difficult of all, inanimate to living.

Harry stretched the blade of grass to the size of a light green sheet and switched from his regular staff to his Windstaff, and after mounting it and flying slowly forward, and then suddenly pointing the nose directly up, he cast, "Sheetardium Leviosa!" Nothing happened, and scowling, he switched back to his staff, and repeated the incantation. Again, nothing happened, and he switched back to his Windstaff. He thought for a second, and muttered, "Bladardium Leviosa!" as he shot straight up again. The sheet of grass nicely followed the movements of his staff, and he found that it took less energy on his part than the same spell had with his regular staff.

Without losing the spell, he followed as Snape had directed he do, and looped the only Wind based spell he knew around the Leviosa, a charm designed for filling sails with air, Lehr. It was easier than it was with a staff, since there were several movements that were small on his wand, but pretty easy to execute on a staff. He got it after a couple of tries, and he was pleased to see the sheet billow in the direction his wand was pointing.

After playing around with the spell for a little while, he dispelled the charms, but left the huge piece of grass on the ground, figuring that it would decompose. Harry mounted his Windstaff, and worked on familiarizing himself with it, at first just practicing moving around slowly on it, and working from the ground up into the air, but later on going gradually quicker and quicker. There were some older kids out on Windstaffs too, but most of them were doing tricks, rather than accustoming themselves to its workings, and he decided against asking them for help. Self-reliance was good, he _knew_ it.

An hour and a half of flying around passed, at which point he had begun to do less dangerous versions of the stunts that he saw the other kids doing, like small dives where he pulled out of before he was ten meters away from the ground, he noticed that the other kids were flying back to the castle. He checked the time with his other staff, having noticed that he could control his Windstaff with only one hand, for the slower speeds at least, and upon realizing that it was indeed time for dinner, he flew with them towards the castle.

Harry found his small group, and ate with them, discussing what they had done that afternoon. He discovered that they had all played around instead of studying, like he had asked them to, and in a fit of pique, lied and said that he had just explored the castle a bit, deciding to withhold the knowledge that he had cut his studying time by a fourth by using his circle, and how he had figured out how to cast some spells using his Windstaff. A few seconds later, he got a headache, and he moaned internally. He _knew_ that he should be virtuous, even if his friends weren't, but he just couldn't. And after all, he justified to himself , Professor Snape had advised him to keep his secrets. He was just following advice.

His headache eased, almost reluctantly, and he soon forgot about it. In the middle of the meal, Dumbledore stood up from his place the Teacher's table, and after applying a voice enhancing charm, he announced, "Someone has parked his or her gigantic green sheet of grass blade on the lawn. This will most likely kill the rest of the grass, and could he or she please remove said gigantic green sheet of grass blade from the field after his or her meal? Thank you." he closed. He abruptly sat down, and dispelled the charm. Harry groaned, and banged his head softly against the table.

"I'll be right back, guys," he muttered, walking away from the table amidst laughter from his friends. He flew out to the sheet, and after briefly debating whether to shrink it, enlarge it until it was see-through, or cut it up into tiny bits, he opted to simply shrink it. With the image of curling up in the foetal position to present less surface area for Dudley to wail on in his mind, he shrank the blade, and quickly returned to the hall.

After the four of them had finished their dinner, they went to the practice room that they had booked for that night, in order to pool their knowledge. When they got there, they noticed that there appeared to be a mattress and pillow in one of the corners, a suitcase next to it. Neville laughed a bit, scornfully. "Must've been one of the Gryffindors who couldn't handle the initiation." Harry arched an eyebrow and Neville explained, "You have to face a fear to get into the common room, he must not have been able to take it."

A girl with short, angry brown hair, who seemed oddly familiar to Harry stepped into the room, and hissed at Neville, "I saw _your_ initiation, boy, screaming at a few insects before closing your eyes and charging in. You can't close your eyes and charge through _fire_."

"Fuck," Neville muttered under his breath to Harry, "The only girl to have a reason not to pass the initiation, and she's camping out in this room."

". . . . And believe me, I tried," she continued, glaring balefully at Neville, "Why do you think my hair's so short? I had to lop it off after it caught on fire and wouldn't stop burning."

Neville seemed to be shrinking, as his shoulders sank lower and lower, and Harry took pity on him. "Well, since Neville clearly didn't know that you were, well, you, on his behalf, I'd like to say that he begs your forgiveness, and apologizes most humbly. Whether or not you accept our apologies," he began.

"I don't," she interrupted, angrily.

". . . we have booked this room for our practice," he continued, unfazed by her outburst, "And although we don't mind you being in here too, you will have to be quiet, and you will have to help us set up privacy wards."

She scowled, and after shrinking and performing a lightening charming upon her trunk, she stalked off, probably towards the library. "Who was that?" Harry asked a mortified Neville.

"Granger, Hermione. She goes back every day and tries something different to get through the first. Last night was going along the edges of the vestibule to get in, but her hair caught on fire, and she had to use a severing charm when she realized that the usual water charms wouldn't work." Gathering his wits again, he commented , "She does have a tremendous grasp of Water charms, though, especially since from what I gather, she's a muggleborn. Some of the charms she tried to use I had only ever heard of, like the localized rainstorm charm. One of the prefects had to knock her out and take her to the hospital wing before she could finish, she was so close to burnout. She's a driven sonuvabitch."

Hannah said, "That was the spell that made my mum only get an A on her charms OWLs! She tried it the other day?" Neville nodded, and Daphne let out a low whistle.

After around twenty seconds of uncomfortable silence, Harry decided to take charge. He _knew_ to do it. "Okay, I'll start. Professor Snape, who I stayed with over the summer if I hadn't told you, thought that one of the most important spells to learn was the levitating charm, for which the object, followed by '_ardium Leviosa'_ is the spell. For example, for a feather, it would be _Wingardium Leviosa_. For this desk," he pulled out his wand, "It would _Deskardium Leviosa_." Thinking of kicking off the ground with his Windstaff, the experience of flying through the air, of quick movement, he overemphasized the wand motion, which was a small flick of the tip of the wand, for the rest of the kids' benefit.

The desk rose into the air, slammed into the ceiling, and Neville gave Harry a confident smile, as if to say, "I knew I was right with you, kiddo."

Harry was somehow slightly annoyed by that, although he wasn't exactly sure why, and continued to teach the spell. "As you could see, the wand movement is a slight flick with the wand, and the desire is to levitate an object. I overdid the wand motion, and you can see what happened with that."

"Harry has a peculiar problem with overpowering his spells, however," Neville interjected in a slow drawl. "So you might not get the same effects as he does."

"Try it," Harry instructed, not deigning to respond to Neville's comment. After around fifteen minutes, all of them got the spell, and could lift things as heavy as a desk, although not as strongly as Harry.

"Don't worry," he encouraged, "You'll get better with practice. Now, who wants to go next?"

Neville volunteered, and explained the _Tor _spell to Daphne and Hannah, with special attention to Daphne, who subtly encouraged it. Harry sighed, and worked on his optomancy, working on decreasing the time it took to adjust the rods and cones in his eyes, closing them and deactivating the cones, before opening them and activating them again. He tried first deactivating both of them before activating the rods, which seemed to work a little faster, and kept on going from there.

Once Daphne and Hannah got the hang of Tor, Daphne began to teach how to cast the disarming charm, _Expelliarmus._ "Well, you have to, uh, say _Expelliarmus_, and the motion is like so–" she moved her arm jerkily upwards, along with her arm, almost hitting herself in the face with her wand.

She laughed nervously, and Harry thought for a second, before casting, only moderately modifying the motion, so that he moved his off-hand in front of his face before jabbing his wand in an upwards motion. "_Expelliarmus!_" The wand flew violently out of her hand, landing on the chalkboard.

She laughed a little, trying to hide the relief that she felt at being able to teach it correctly. Harry made his vision slightly sharper, noticing from the rising and falling of her chest that her heart rate was falling rapidly. Hannah and Neville both got the concept a little later, although Neville's exasperation and Daphne's heart rate went up when Neville couldn't get the spell to work until Harry showed him his addition to the spell. "See, imagine that with this hand, you're knocking they're wand hand down, and with your wand hand, you're grabbing their wand out of their hand."

Neville's mouth formed a silent 'O', and he tried the spell again, with much more success. "Man, that's such a cool spell!" he enthused to Daphne. "I wish my uncle taught me such straightforward hunting spells like that." Still using his slightly sharpened vision, he saw the muscles in her neck tense up, and she shrugged. The muscles didn't loosen afterwards.

Hannah explained the basic theory around sending an image search over the GWM, which was that one needed to give the circle an image, and select the search option. After a great deal of time, the circle would give back several results with some margin of error, and give coordinates for where the shot was taken from, and where the object was, in feet away from the Earth's center, radians towards the North Pole from the equator, and radians towards Japan from Greenwich. Hannah gave the rest of the kids copies of a search function that she had created, and instructions on how to install them in their circles.

After the four of them had disseminated their knowledge to each other, they packed up their stuff and left the room. As Daphne was picking up her books, Harry whispered to her, "I need you to wait behind for a few seconds after everyone else." She gave him a questioning look, but nodded in agreement.

Hannah left, and Neville was about to leave, when he looked behind himself, and asked Harry and Daphne, who were both obviously quite ready to leave, "Aren't you coming?"

Harry nodded tightly. "I just need to talk to Daphne about something quickly. Don't worry."

Neville gave Harry a small accusatory look, and Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes, instead giving Neville a small smile back, reassuring him. Satisfied, Neville left. Abruptly, Harry turned to Daphne, and whispered, "You're not doing a very good job."

Taken aback, she asked in the same tone of voice, "What?"

Harry clarified, "If Neville knew what to look for, you'd already be found out. You're not the same kind of hunter as the rest of us."

Daphne sank to her knees, and dropped her books. "I can't believe I was so stupid–Greengrasses have pretended for the benefit of other hunters that we hunt Chimeras and Nundus like everyone else for hundreds of years–how did I fail so miserably?" she moaned.

"It was the lupusnip," he said shortly, unsure of how to deal with her. Suddenly, he _knew_ what to do. "Look, I won't tell anyone, you can keep your secret," he said confidingly. "I'm sure that you're not the only person in your family who has let it slip that you hunt sentient creatures, since it _has_ been hundreds of years. Besides, how would your family get clients if they didn't tell anyone what they did?"

"We use a pseudonym," she breathed, clearly a little soothed.

"Well, it's not the end of the world, is what I'm trying to say," Harry backtracked, "But if you don't want Neville to get a clue, you're going to need to brush up on your Charms work. Lemme guess, your family encouraged your love of potions, since they'll work fine against a vampire or werewolf?" She nodded, woefully. "You're still going to need to brush up on your charms work. No self respecting hunter would have nothing more than a disarming charm to defend him or herself from a charging werewolf."

She sighed, and forcing herself to smile a bit, she said, "In for a sickle, in for a galleon, eh? I can briefly transfigure any of my body parts into silver or wood, if need be, and my saliva into Holy water."

"But can you teach Neville how to turn his body parts into silver for long enough that he doesn't think that you're a weird sort of hunter?"

She sighed. "I see where you're going. I'll try to study charms some more, but it's quite boring for me."

Harry shrugged. "You just need to know enough to teach us all something new once a week, you don't have to become a slave to it."

Harry made to leave, when Daphne called after him, "Why don't you just tell Neville?"

Harry smiled. "I have no reason to. I was raised muggle, and don't share his deadly fear of love. And if you couldn't tell, would fabricated love be any less wonderful? Ignorance, like love, is bliss."

Looking behind him as he walked out, he sharpened his vision enough to see her mouth the words, "Thanks, Harry."

He turned back towards where he was walking, and stopped abruptly before he ran over Granger, who sneered at him, before continuing on, up through G. Tower. Harry _knew_ that he should follow her, but didn't have an explanation for himself why. She looked back over her shoulder at him every few seconds, but didn't say anything.

At the top of the climb, Granger strode into the room on the left, and Harry followed. The first think that he noticed about the room was that it was full of fire. The second thing was that the ceilings were very low, and the walls close. There would be no way to avoid the fire.

Without a word to Harry, she cast, "_Cum Gekkonidae._" Without further ado, she climbed up the side of the wall, à la Spiderman, and moved forward on the ceiling, feeling the ceiling in front of her. Harry guessed that it was to check for overly hot spots. He sat down, and looked through the small pile of lightened books that he always carried with him, picked out the Standard, and dispelled the charm that kept it light. After casting it, he immediately felt significantly weaker, and he simultaneously cursed his wand and felt glad that he knew how to rectify his weakness in the future, at least partially.

Leafing through it, he found the flame freezing charm, and considered how the charm functioned, and would want to attack the problem. After a few minutes of reading, he called up to Granger, "The spell isn't simply an illusion, is it?"

She screeched back, "Is my hair burnt off because of an illusion?"

He took it as a no, and after a brief review of the spell in the book, he cast the spell, bending his arm and twisting his shoulder so that his arm was perpendicular to the floor, and then twisting his wrist so that the staff functioned as a pointer to the edges of the fire, and remembering moments stretched out in front of the Dursley's radiator, the heat trapped in the radiator and far away from his skin, incapable of dealing any damage to him. Knowing that the spell was designed for a much smaller fire, he forced some extra magic from his blood into the shrunken staff, to compensate. The procedure was much simpler than attempting to minimize the effect of his spells.

Squinting at the fire, he wasn't sure if the spell had worked, and in order to test it, he ripped a page out of his notebook paper, and flung it in. It didn't light on fire, and tentatively, he reached his hand towards the fire. Although it seemed quite warm, actually reaching into the fire was still a little painful, although he decided that pain would have to be his punishment for poor spell casting.

Pulling his hand out of the fire, he called again to Granger, "Come down! I have a question."

He could see her hang her head in annoyance, although since she was upside down, her head went in the opposite direction that it normally would. "Why can't I answer it from here?" she complained.

Harry rolled his eyes. It was a pity that she was so difficult, although he _knew_ that she would be useful, if only he could make her his friend. "No, it's something down here that you have to see," he informed her.

She visibly sighed, and reluctantly made her way back down the wall. "Okay, what do you want?"

Harry pulled out the Standard, and holding it at arms length toward the fire, and away from Hermione, he gestured towards the flame freezing spell. "Well, shouldn't this spell work?" he asked.

"No, no, if you look down there, it specifies the kind of spell it was supposed to work with, you have to cast it quite a few times in order to get the same kind of volume– look, if you'll hand it to me, I can just point it out to you–" Hermione held out her hand for the volume, but Harry kept on holding it, pretending to be observing it.

"Wait, where on the page did you say it was? You don't need to touch it to tell me where it is, you know, just the top, middle or bottom," he said, still keeping it out of Hermione's reach.

After a few seconds of trying to retrieve it using words from Harry, culminating in Harry whining, "Well then why don't you get out your **own** copy?" she stalked over to the book and forcibly grabbed it out of his hands, and examined the page for the quote she had mentioned. Harry took this opportunity to shove her bodily into the fire.

She shrieked, and cursed, and once she realized that she wasn't on fire, she cursed some more. "How the fuck can you do this? I try for half a week, and no success, but you get it nearly instantly with your stupid fucking flame freezing charm! What the fuck!" she complained vocally.

"You just needed to adjust the charm for the volume, silly," he laughed.

She growled, and stomped through the fire, using her arm as a machete through the jungle that was the fire, until she reached the threshold of the Gryffindor dormitories. The fire disappeared, and Harry let the charm go. He attempted to gather his books, but stopped when he realized that he had unwittingly dispelled the charms on **all **of the books, instead of only the Standard. After quickly recasting his lightening charms, which nearly took him to burnout, considering his earlier activities, he made to leave, but stopped when he heard her voice.

"Who **are **you?" she asked.

"I'm Harry Potter!" he laughed as he left the room.

"I fucking hate you, Potter," she yelled venomously after him.

Walking down the corridor, in the low light, hearing footsteps behind him, he turned his head, and saw her following him. "Stalker tendencies much?" he asked her, his voice still full of mirth.

"Shut it Potter," she sneered. "I'm just going this way because my stuff is still in that classroom."

He laughed, and dropped back, so that they were walking side by side. She glowered at him the entire way back to the classroom as he smiled brightly at her. After a long stretch of corridor, she finally turned into the classroom that Harry and his group had been practicing in, and idly and angrily performed the neat _Pack_ charm that McAndrews had proudly displayed, with equal dexterity, and none of the tiredness that he had displayed after it.

As she walked back out of the classroom, trunk in tow, he suddenly recognized her. "Oh!" he exclaimed.

"What," she drawled sarcastically, "You just realized that you're a stupid douche? Because the rest of us realized that–"

Ignoring her, he eagerly said, "You're the girl from the boat, who helped us win first place!"

She stared blankly, before accusing morosely, "Fuck. You're the guy with the nice Fazzy, aren't you." He nodded, and she groaned, before more resolutely deciding, "You're still a wanker, Potter."

"Love you too," he said jauntily. In a small part of his brain, he noted that before a few months ago, he never would have said that. For a second, he speculated that there was some weird and foreign magic operating on his mind, bring his behaviors and thought patters 'round to match some sort of twisted scheme, but he ignored that small part of his brain, in favor of confidently telling her, "We'll meet again, Granger."

She seemed to barely restrain herself from sticking out her tongue, instead settling for stomping back towards her dorm, while Harry walked back towards R. Tower. There was so much to do. He _knew_ it.

* * *

post story A/N: Thanks goes to A-Man for his lack of fear in giving a harsh review, criticizing my grammar even though he doesn't know how to spell conscious. Please though, next time at least give an email address so that I may inquire as to where my worst clichés are, and tell you that if you want to read a story, it might be necessary to pick up a dictionary a few times. Don't make me go all pugnacious on you. 

More thanks goes to SaphireGoddess57, who is amazing, and talented, and who I love very, very much, even though our correspondance totals less than three thousand words in all. She has left an amazing and spectacular review, with loads of extremely helpful constructive criticism, which I have used.

Speaking of wonderful reviews, I was quite happy to hear why people loved or hated story alerts, and have come to, myself, love the story alert. Thank you, readers.

Calling for BETAS! I need one. Badly. If you don't feel like you're up to the task of Beta-ing (it's a rigorous one, believe me) but are still interested in hearing spoilers and/or being a board for bouncing plot bunnies/twists off of, please tell me, either in a PM or review. There are no requirements for being a Beta, although a fair grasp of the English language would be nice. Any Beta hired would be required to not be afraid to announce if a sentence seemed awkward, even if it was grammatically correct.

Also, reviewers, don't forget that there will not be any ships in the foreseeable future.

This has been EDITED: Thank you Idhren for the idea as to how to do spells while atop a windstaff.


	9. Turn! Turn! Turn!

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Nine

On Saturday afternoon, rumors ran rampant through the ranks of the first years like a bird on the wind. Everyone knew that there was going to be a challenge, but what could it be? Harry's group, which had decided to take Fred and George up on their offer to join the Vikings, decided to ask the twins for advice.

After explaining what they wanted, Fred and George looked at each of them, and after a silent exchange, grinned. "Good call, asking us for help, kids," Fred commended. "The first is always Herbology, although it's unsure what kind of a task it will be. I remember that last year, for the first challenge, we had to uproot mandrakes, and later on, there was one where you had to get through a modified devil's snare in order to reach a key, and one at the end of the year that was puzzles in conjunction with the regular challenge, which I think was Identification. I'm not sure."

With that advice, Harry decided to bring all of his possessions, excluding clothes, along with him in his trunk, shrunken and lightened. After gathering the materials, he met with Daphne, Hannah and Neville in the great hall, as they had agreed, in order to wait for the proctor of the challenge to make the announcement of what it would be.

Since the proctor wasn't scheduled to make the announcement until about half an hour later, at eight o'clock, Harry decided to take an inventory of what everyone else had brought, and upon hearing what they had done, he was glad that he had brought everything. Neville had a grand total of one wand and three dungbombs, for slowing down competing groups, while Daphne had only her wand, and Hannah had a pen, a knife, some paper for drawing circles, a magical light, and her wand. Harry refrained from asking them to collect more equipment, since he didn't want them to risk being late, and possibly miss what the proctor had to say.

Five minutes before the proctor arrived, Neville mentioned something that Harry hadn't considered. "Action by consensus will simply slow down the mission. We should have a leader."

Daphne nodded, and before anyone else could say anything, blurted out, "Yeah, and it should be Harry."

Harry said nothing, slightly afraid of messing up, but also slightly proud of being considered leader material. He _knew_ leaders were great. Neville seconded the motion, giving Harry a look that brought to his mind the words 'Je te souviens'. Hannah shrugged, and Harry nodded. "Okay, I'll do it," he announced.

Daphne smirked at him. "You didn't have a choice, anyways," she laughed, while he rolled his eyes.

A few minutes later, as the hall completely filled up with wide eyed first years, eager for their first challenge at Hogwarts, Professor Sprout appeared abruptly on the stage that had been put there temporarily, and after casting the voice enhancing charm on herself, cleared her throat to attract attention to her. "Attention, first years," she called. "Your task is to go to the F. Forest, collect a cutting from a giant ash tree, as well as a kilogram of dirt from the forest floor, and a sprig of bloodwort." With a smile, she commanded, "Go!" and the race was on.

Harry gestured for them to follow him outside, and after seeing Granger awkwardly perform the _Connect: Movement_ spell on her shoes, and the boy from the Portkey at Diagon Alley strap on a pair of boots, he had an idea. He enlarged his Windstaff, but then had to consider means of transportation for the rest of them, seeing as they hadn't gotten to actual flying in magical transportation class. Suddenly, he remembered what they had been doing in charms all week had ultimately led up to. Excitedly, he picked a blade of grass, and after enlarging it to the size of a sheet, asked Neville if he had any drying charms. Neville responded by drying out the sheet of grass, which had turned more rigid than flexible. Daphne, getting the idea, added a full stillness hex, as Harry had intended. Harry flashed her a quick smile, which she returned, and Neville glared at, before Harry asked Neville to perform the _Connect: Movement_ charm on his Windstaff and the sheet of grass. He did so, after thinking for a few seconds, and then Harry mounted the Windstaff, and instructed Neville, Daphne, and Hannah to get on the grass.

"Ugh, this is really hard on my ass," Neville complained. Harry sighed, and opened up his trunk, looking for something to cushion his passengers' asses.

A blanket caught his eye, and he pulled it out of his miniature trunk, before enlarging it to its former size. He motioned for the three to get off of the grass, and lay the blanket on it before casting a sticking charm. After thinking for a second, he whispered, "Rot," turning the tip of his shrunken staff red, and then drew a rune on the blanket, convincing the air surrounding the blanket that the blanket was in a position of significantly less pressure. Turning his staff back to its normal brown, he motioned for the other kids to step on. They did so, marveling at the increased level of comfort. He smiled, and mounted his windstaff, about to start flying, when Hannah voiced her complaint, reminding him of his obligation.

"Won't it break?" Hannah worried.

"Nah," Harry replied nonchalantly. "The variant on the stillness hex that Daphne used on it was used by the Norse so that they could ski down mountains on their enemies' spinal cords. It'll hold." Looking her in the eye, he smiled. "The question is," he began ominously, "If **you** can." After quickly teaching everyone the sticking charm that Granger had used to climb the walls, he sped off towards the forest. Passing Granger on the way out, he heard her scream something, but what it was got lost in the wind.

A few minutes later, they arrived, and Harry instructed Neville and Daphne to let go of their charms. The grass promptly fell to pieces, and Hannah shivered. "Hannah, can you quickly conduct a search for bloodwort and ash?" Hannah nodded, and after quickly flipping through Harry's copy of Magical Herbs and Fungi, she located 'ash', and set up a search for within fifty meters, looking for the distinctive _eihwaz_ rune hidden in the bark. Within two minutes, it located a tree, and Hannah and Harry went over to the tree to collect four cuttings.

Borrowing Hannah's knife, he was about to just randomly cut off bits of the tree, when he felt, in the tree, the _right_ place to take a cutting. Excitedly, he realized that that must be part of his bloodline, and carefully, he followed his instincts. With smooth, calm motions, he lopped off bits of the tree that he could tell wouldn't be harmful to the tree, and put the four cuttings into his pocket.

Returning to where Neville and Daphne were waiting, Harry was happily surprised to see that they had already fashioned containers for the dirt, using a dead tree, a burning spell, and a cleaning spell, and he placed a cutting inside each of the containers.

Hannah repeated the feat of finding the plant with the bloodwort, but couldn't find it in the low light. Harry had an idea, and used his optomancy, partially suppressing his cones, and partially activating his rods in order to enable his eyes to find a patch of it. Harry was about to pick the bloodwort, when he had a bad feeling about it, and decided to put on a pair of dragon-hide gloves first. He carefully grabbed it at the bottom, and pulled it out of the ground, roots and all. Harry did the same for three other herbs, and quickly walked with Hannah back to the waiting pair, and deposited the bloodwort in the containers.

"You probably shouldn't touch this with your hands." After making sure that the bloodwort was secure in the wooden pots, he shook the excess dirt off of his gloves, and smiled at the group. "Okay, we're good. Who wants to make the sheet? Neville?" Harry asked, happy with his success.

Neville bit his lip, and began reluctantly, "Well, no offense Harry, but Daphne and I have been talking . . . and we think that it we're more likely to preserve our lives if we just _walk_ back, instead of taking your crazy stiff blanket idea." Hannah nodded, and looked apologetically at Harry.

Harry shrugged, not really hurt, although slightly disappointed by their lack of drive to succeed, especially Daphne's, given her house. "Okay, your loss." The three of them started walking back, and he flipped through his standard for a spell that would keep liquid from sloshing out of your glass, ideal for transporting coffee without a lid. He found it, and after casting it, and testing out his lid by shaking the container heartily, and seeing that none of the dirt fell out, he shrunk the container, put it in his pocket, and flew back to the castle.

Dismounting right outside of the doors, his expression was serene, while his heart was beating quickly. He dispelled the shrinking charm on his container, and walking over to Professor Sprout, handed her the bloodwort, cutting of the ash tree, and dirt. "The Potter gene strikes again," she muttered. Looking Harry in the eye, she asked, "Would you mind taking off your gloves so that I can see your fingers?" He took off his gloves, sliding them into his pocket, and showed the professor his small hands, front and back. After a few seconds of observation, she nodded, and smiled.

"Well, you get one point for finishing, two points for coming in first in your house, two points for coming in first overall, a half point for keeping the root structure intact for the bloodwort, one point for not hurting your hands, and a half point for taking a good part of a tree, so as not to damage it. Seven points overall." Pensively, she asked Harry, "How many merit points do you have now, Potter?"

Thinking for a second, he waited for a second before nodding. "Twenty three and a half, ma'am."

"Holy shit!" she blurted out before blushing, and coughing nervously. "I mean, good work, Potter. But, ah, it's not too good to just hoard all of your points, since they disappear at the end of the year."

Harry's eyebrows rose, and he asked, "Can I buy insurance that my points will come back to me next year?"

She nodded reluctantly, and said, "Ten points."

"And that my benefits will stay with me?" he asked.

"Another ten points," she said grudgingly. "You should really be spending them on things like a room for yourself," she admonished Harry.

"No thank you," he said with respect, "I kind of like the too-close . . ."

Whatever Harry had intended to say was cut off, as Granger rushed in, panting, and still dispelling the _Connect: Movement_ charm on her shoes. "I've won, professor!" she panted, exhilarated, her short hair spiked up, like she had just gone flying.

"Well, a close second place, at least," Sprout let her down gently.

Surprised, Granger looked to where Sprout was point, at Harry, and her face grew red with anger. "F–" remembering that Sprout was there, she quickly changed her wording. "Screw you, Potter!" she hissed.

"Well, there's a spot of enmity," Sprout commented.

"Love you too, Granger," Harry joyfully announced.

Sneering at Harry, she dug bloodwort out of her pocket with scabbed over fingers, and cuttings and dirt out of her other pocket. The bloodwort had been hacked off right before the roots, and the Harry could tell from a meter away that the cutting was too long, and might have damaged the tree. Sprout lifted an eyebrow, and sighed. "Well, you get one point for finishing, and two points for finishing first in your house, ah, Granger, yes?" After Granger nodded, she continued, "You can also go and see the resident healer, because you weren't supposed to touch the bloodwort with your fingers."

She quickly snuck a glance at Harry's fingers, which he happily wiggled for her, before she bit back a growl, and said, "Yes, Professor. Thank you."

As she walked towards the Healer, who she had seen before for her burns, and for her near Burnout, Harry followed her, teasing her. "Hmm, maybe you should do a little research before you pick your herbs, next time, Granger."

"Fuck you, Potter," she muttered, speeding up.

Harry changed his speed to match hers, and smiled. "And it's such a pity that you only got second place. There were a few more points in there for you if you had only paid a little better attention in Herbology, Granger. I just guess that some people are . . . you know, naturally gifted," he insinuated, "And some of us are . . . not."

She glared at him again, and sped up some more. "Yeah, right, Potter," she grumbled. "I looked you guys up. You've probably known what bloodwort was and the common potions it was involved in making since the age of three. I'm a muggleborn, for your information, and I've only known about Magic since June. That means that I've had only three months to study all of this shit, so you can shut your fucking mouth, right now, you Pureblood sissy fucktard. Besides, you're a Potter, and everyone knows that they've had fucking crazy green thumbs since fucking 600 BCE."

"Maybe, maybe not," Harry muttered, deciding to avoid the topic of his relatives. Pity could be useful, but he had a feeling that Granger didn't have much of it to give. He remained silent until Pomfrey had ordered Granger onto one of the beds in the room, and had begun to spread out a restorative paste onto the affected parts of Granger's skin. "How many points do you have?" he asked nonchalantly.

She gave a quick grin, followed by a grimace, and a quick intake of breath, as Healer Pomfrey hit a rough spot. "Sorry dear," she soothed.

"Yeah, suck it up, Granger," Harry whispered in her ear.

She glared at him, and sticking her chin up in the air, crowed, "This makes it eight points."

Harry blinked a few times, before laughing a bit. "I mean, before you subtract for stuff that you've used for points."

She looked at him in confusion. "Well, after I've subtracted that stuff, I'm at five." Putting her good hand, her left, in front of her, she counted off, "Hospital expenses for the rest of the year, two points, and a shower for myself, one point,"

"Now don't go touching bloodwort again. Jesus knows why Dumbledore keeps that stuff on the outskirts of the F. Forest. It's plenty dangerous already," she complained, finishing off smearing the ointment on Granger's fingers.

"Thanks," she muttered ungratefully. Looking at Harry, she asked, "How many do you have, Mr. Hotshot?" Then she whipped her head towards the Healer, and confusedly asked, "And I thought that you guys had different Gods than us."

The healer looked at Harry, who smiled demurely, and made a half bow. "Well, I think my friend told me that Jesus is the current god of healing, but, you first, Madame Pomfrey."

She smiled a bit at Harry, "Why, you little charmer. It's good to find someone with good manners at this school, what with all of the kids thinking that they're smarter than you."

He swelled with pride as she pointedly looked at Granger. It was good not to antagonize people in positions of power. He _knew_ it.

"Anyways, Miss, Jesus is the only God of Healing we have right now, no matter how crappy he is at it." She closed her eyes and sighed as she wrapped a bandage around Granger's fingers.

"How is he bad at doing it?" Granger asked, clearly intrigued.

Pomfrey cast a spell on the bandage, turning it invisible, and started drawing some runes on Granger's fingertips. "Well," she explained, her speech broken up into little bits because of the intricacy of the task at hand, "He's not, ugh, you know, twist that finger a bit? Thanks, a very skilled healer himself. Old Asclepius could bring the back the dead, he was so good, but Jesus? Eh, a few miracles here and there, completely regenerated a few limbs. Nothing a– you have to let me see the palm of your hand, it needs some bogus runes for the Arithmancy to work out– a starfish couldn't do. See, Asclepius was a regular human, his healing power twice squared by his mother's sacrifice, you see, and then Yahweh, who had some personal interest in Jesus, arranged to have Asclepius kidnaped. None of the Gods of Death were all that happy with him anyways, so it was pretty easy to convince them to help Yahweh, the primary God of Fear, to cage Asclepius. He's still somewhere, just caged, waiting to get back at Jesus, the Usurper. But for now . . . he's all we've got, so we invoke his name, despite his feebleness."

Granger and Harry had remained silent through her explanation, excluding a few murmurs of pain from Granger, but at the end of it, Granger piped up. "Powers twice squared? I've never heard of that," she said, much more courteous now that she knew that the healer had something to offer her.

"That's because you can't do it anymore," she said over her shoulder as she walked back to the back of the infirmary. "Hold up one second," she said, "I need to get a pensieve to remember the right memories for this operation."

"Wow," Granger stage-whispered in delight. "Only the really complicated spells need emotions, right? Like the Cruciatus?"

When she came back, the healer gave Granger a peculiar look. "I find it disturbing that the Cruciatus is the first powerful spell that comes to your mind." Harry giggled a bit, and Granger turned red.

"What does the Cruciatus do, Healer?" Harry asked.

"The most indescribable pain, Mr. Potter," she whispered, making him strain his hearing in order to hear it, "Like a thousand needles stabbing you all over your body, a million times a second, that simply increases in pain the more you get used to it. Except–" She paused for a second, and spooning silver from the bowl into her head, she began speaking again. "Except . . . not at all. Like a combination of brands and freezing ice, hammering against your skin. And a zapping feeling, but . . . as I said, it's indescribable."

"Was this cast on you, Healer?" Harry asked quietly.

She nodded. "You need to endure it for ten seconds before you can be authorized for actually doing surgery, and dealing out pain to other people." Pulling out her wand, she moved it in a complicated set of subtle flicks with counter flicks behind it, ending with the wand on Granger's temple, and the word, "_Praetexe_".

"Holy shit," Granger murmured, awestruck, staring at her hand, where the runes had disappeared into the skin.

"That was magnificent, Healer," Harry breathed. "What did that do?"

Healer Pomfrey bit her lip, and shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Mr. Potter, can you do me a favor and grab a hold of your foul mouthed friend's hand?"

"We're not friends," Granger grumbled, letting Harry take her hand.

"Can you feel the bandages anymore, Harry?" Harry felt all around Granger's hand, which had become rigid the instant he touched it.

"No professor, it seems completely normal and warm to me," he replied, letting go of her hand.

"Excellent!" she exclaimed. "And can you dump some water on her hand? Here," she conjured a glass of water, and was about to hand it to Harry, when Granger grabbed it out of her hand.

"I can do it just fine, thank you very much," she said snootily.

Madame Pomfrey rolled her eyes, and watched as Granger poured water over her hand, and it gushed right off of an invisible force a quarter of an inch away from her hand. "Wicked," Harry breathed, and Granger seemed to be impressed in spite of herself.

"Test it again, Mr. Potter?" she commanded.

He nodded, and took her hand, once again feeling only her skin. "Nothing but skin, Professor," he declared.

"Excellent. Now, what were we talking about?" she asked, washing her hands, and ignoring the small green man, who rushed in from the corner and with a flick of the wrist and sharp cutting motion with his fingers, cleaned the water off of the floor, and seemed to disappear into thin air again.

"Ah . . . what was that?" Granger asked, astounded.

"Muggleborn?" the Healer asked. "You're usually much more polite than this. It's usually the pretentious purebloods I have to worry about. What's the world coming to?" she asked, looking into the air.

Granger pursed her lips, and as Healer Pomfrey continued, Harry smiled. "A house elf, for your information. Very useful."

"The school will lend you the service of House elves for a point a month, Granger," Harry offered helpfully.

"I guess that makes me at four points when I get back to my room then, Potter," she whispered. "Amazing."

Madam Pomfrey slapped her on the back, and she jumped off the bed, after giving the Healer a brief thanks. "It's not problem," she responded, happily. "By the way, you were wondering about twice squared powers?" she asked.

Harry nodded eagerly, and took Granger's spot on the bed. Granger scowled, and motioned for him to shove over, which he did quickly, letting her have a seat. "Ah, story time!" the healer sarcastically proclaimed, clapping her hands together with a fake smile stretched all over her face.

Again, Granger struggled to keep herself from giving the healer a full out sneer, while Harry laughed out loud. "Come, come, Healer Pomfrey!" he chanted excitedly, "Tell us a story!"

She smiled at Harry, and rolled her shoulders while she spoke. "Well, one of the old Gods of Magic, perhaps Hecate, Thoth, or Agwu– probably Agwu, I'm guessing, he always liked specificity, made a rule that in exchange for any and all ability to do other forms of magic, you could pump up one thread of magic. It was to be used by crappy witches or wizards, in order for them to become relatively useful and productive witches or wizards, even if it was only in one school. This went on fairly nicely for, say, a few hundred years, until someone figured out a loophole in this. There was a woman, who loved her son very much. Well–"she squinted one eye, and looked towards the ceiling with the other. "I suppose you need a little background information."

Sighing, she began speaking again. "Well, records say that the more of your magic you gave up, the stronger you would be– for example, one guy gave up all magic except for the lifting spell that you now call _leviosa_. His was, of course, much longer and in Aramaic. Before, he had been extremely weak, incapable of lifting anything larger than a smallish cow, but afterwards, he could lift a house. In comparison, a similarly weak fellow, who gave up everything except for transfiguration, couldn't even manage anything more complicated than human to stone. Now, listen carefully. An extremely powerful, but sickly woman, had a very strong healer as a son. The woman had taught him all that she knew, but it was difficult for her, because she needed to keep as much of her magic on herself to prevent her from dying. One day, this young man was in a contest with another man, who had a bloodline in healing, to see who was the best healer. There was some great prize at stake, I believe it was the loser's head, and so–"

Here, Granger rudely interrupted her, and asked eagerly, "And this young healer is Asclepius?" she asked.

The healer looked Granger, before rolling her eyes. "Yes, _of course_ he's Asclepius." Shaking her head, she continued, "Anyways, so Asclepius is going to lose his head against this inferior healer with a bloodline, and his mother has an epiphany. Her son is all that she has in the world, and since she never had a daughter, he was carrying her bloodline, too. So, she thinks about what she can do to help him. Initially, she thinks of giving him a bloodline, since neither she nor his father had a bloodline, but realizing that he was of the wrong sex, she looked and looked for a ritual. Eventually, she found this, and even though she was a very powerful witch, she decided to perform it. In exchange for all of her powers except the ability to perform this spell, she powered up the **ability to perform the spell**, within a specific time frame, and then performed the spell **again**."

"Ah, Healer?" Harry said, trying to politely acquire her attention.

"Yes?" she serenely questioned back.

"How would that ritual be of any use anymore if she didn't have any magic?" he asked quietly, understanding from the tone of her voice while she told the story that this was one of the great tales of the Magic world, and that he should show it its due reverence.

"Well, we'll come to that, won't we?" she said, seeming mildly irritated. "Quiet, Mr. Potter, this is almost finished." He nodded quickly, and she began again. "So after Asclepius' mother had finished this ritual, feeling her life slipping away because the magics that she had long cast on herself to keep her alive were failing, she called Asclepius into the room, and he held her in his arms as she sacrificed her life instead of her magic in the ritual, granting him preternatural– or, well, more preternatural than usual, magical powers of healing."

There was silence, as if in reverence, so profound that not even Granger could make a catty remark. Harry briefly wondered if there was a magic surrounding even naming the gods, but dismissed it as fallacy. After a few moments, Granger couldn't take it any longer. "And then what happened?" she begged. "Did he win the contest?"

"Yes, of course he won," Healer Pomfrey responded, in a slightly hushed tone, clearly still feeling, like Granger and Harry, the awe of the tale, even though she had known it for a long time. "He found a cure for old age, and raised the Judge's wife from the dead. He's now the only known mortal to also be considered a God."

As Granger and Harry parted, walking away from the Hospital wing slowly, Harry was struck by the intense level of sympathy that he felt for Asclepius, at having been jailed simply for being too good at his art. As he drifted to sleep, with significantly more space in his dorm, from many of the Ravenclaws finally having accumulated enough points to move to either an individual room, or one with fewer occupants, he considered how ironic it was that he, a lowly mortal, was feeling pity for a God.

* * *

Over the next few days, Harry took Nectarus' words to heart, and in addition to his other side projects, like the Bonsai tree, optomancy, and Granger, he began to regularly exhaust his supply of magic, which was fairly simple with his overly draining staff. One of the first things that he did with his core analyzer was test how much of his energy it took to cast the simplest spells he knew, and he was quite distressed to see that even a simple _Tor_ or _Lumos_ used up around a tenth of all of his magic, and that spells that he hadn't practiced before could drive the percentage up to a fifth. He hadn't been able to notice it before, because magical cores slowly regenerated through the waking hours, and very quickly while one was sleeping, but in retrospect, he realized that he had been in danger of burnout on nearly every one of his days at Hogwarts.

In fact, he barely ever had to perform more than one or two spells after a full day of magic in order to get himself very close to being out of magic, fulfilling his Magic homework from Professor Nectarus. He took to practicing looping spells, at first peculiar combinations, like _Tor_ and _Jak_, creating bizarre dancing figures of steam, and after a few days, of similar variety. He borrowed a book called, "The Light Side of the Moone" which documented practically all of the spells for illuminating things that had ever existed, and set about to trying different combinations of light spells, in order to give himself a light show while he was practicing.

After a great deal of experimenting, Harry also came to realize that he didn't find the use of optomancy at all as draining as using regular spells, and that after he had actually performed it, it didn't actually require any additional magic for him to keep his eyes in the form that he had adjusted them to. Harry learned to automatically suppress the activation of cones when he used his light spells, especially since he usually overpowered them to one degree or another, causing his eyes to hurt. When he wasn't practicing on expanding his magical core, he practiced optomancy, mostly making sure that he didn't forget his technique on stretching his lens, and better understanding the cones and rods of his eyes. His latest venture in optomancy was that he had begun to figure out how to use the various melanocytes in his eyes, to go through melanogenesis. He had figured out how to get a neat kind of purplish colour, but was finding it exceedingly difficult to extract melanin from his eyes. At this point in time, it seemed like the only thing that worked very effectively was forcibly pushing the melanin out of his eyes, and then blinking until the tears cleared it out of his eyes. It was, understandably, excruciatingly painful.

After a week of intense studying in the OR, as well as practice in optomancy, and strengthening his magic, he was exhausted when the time for the next challenge came, but simultaneously exhilarated. He had found that he had developed a mental block on studying theory while not in the OR, and that he needed to sleep almost ten hours a day to be up to full snuff, while he had formerly only had to sleep seven hours. He could attribute one hour to the OR, as he had started sleeping eight hours after he had started using the OR, and then had moved to ten hours after he began to make sure that he was nearly magically exhausted every night.

On the rare occasions when he was magically exhausted, had used his hour of studying, and finished his homework early, Harry would go exploring the castle, in order to familiarize himself with it. While walking the corridors, he would often be sidetracked by portraits, who were only too happy to advise Harry on the more interesting places to see in Hogwarts, and some of the secret passages around Hogwarts. Most notably, in his opinion, was an elevator that would take him from any floor of R. Tower to any other floor if he could recite the White Rabbit's first line in Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, and the still life that when tickled on its pear, shivered before opening the way to the kitchen, which Harry would stop by if he needed a snack. In the week after the first challenge, he managed to search the entire top two floors of Ravenclaw Tower.

Harry continued to meet with the group of four, which was often boring, as Hannah would invariably explain something interesting, but far too simplistic for Daphne and Neville to take a full half hour to figure out, which they always would, Daphne trying as hard as she could to be as far away from the kind of Hunter that Harry knew she was, and Neville flustered by being around his crush. After Hannah had given copies of the code needed to perform the find command on a book, in order to find a specific amount of text, Harry figured out the procedure in around ten minutes, and spent the rest of the time memorizing the code and trying to figure out how it all fit together. It was difficult to determine where one command began and the next ended, especially since he had long since realized that a single command could have three or four different kinds of script in it simultaneously.

It was further strained as Daphne would teach a single piece of combat magic that she had often learned only the night before, sometimes begging Harry for help finding one, so that he didn't learn anything, and could only silently sigh in frustration as Daphne became progressively more nervous about Neville discovering her true profession, leading her to be completely inept as a teacher for Neville and Hannah, only worsening as Neville complimented her profusely at the end of each of her lessons. Neville's lessons were also boring, since he didn't seem to have learned anything beyond the grade one material, which Harry was already marginally familiar with, and didn't have any advice for strengthening Harry's water spells. More and more, the entire group thing seemed like a waste of time.

The Vikings had only approached Harry once, again through Fred and George, and only to say that their first meeting would be on September the 30th, and that he wasn't to bring his group along, since they hadn't proved themselves worthy yet for the ladder.

A week of aggravating experiences with the rest of his group passed, in which the group had bonded without him through playing loads of football and frisbee while he was exploring the halls of Hogwarts, and studying his ass off. He was quite glad, that after hearing that the challenge was on magical creatures, that all of them excluding Harry opted not to attend the challenge, fearing that since none of them had any prior experience in handling the animals that they would be hurt. Harry had only sighed, and decided that he had nothing to lose by participating, suspecting that it couldn't possibly be all that difficult if it was for first years exclusively.

When he got to the place of the challenge, he was moderately dismayed to see that Hagrid, the proctor for the challenge, demanded that they remove all of the items they had taken in with them for the challenge except for writing utensils, their copies of the Monster Book of Monsters, which Kettleburn had distributed at their first class, a pad of paper, and if they had them, their potion kits.

Harry looked around the room, and was surprised to see that the pattern for his group seemed to have held for the rest of the year too, after he only counted fifty heads. He noted that the Patil twins were absent, as was Terry Boot, but that Granger was urgently flipping through the monster book of monsters. He opted not to talk to her, deciding that there was time for that after they had finished the task, and instead practiced refining his optomancy while waiting for Hagrid to speak. Without a hand mirror, he was unfortunately reduced to practicing his farseeing and near sight, since he couldn't be sure that he was generating the right kind of melanin, or anything at all.

At precisely eight o'clock, Hagrid cleared his throat, calling, "Good evening, kids!"

They chorused back half-heartedly, "Good evening," and Hagrid smiled.

"It's just wonderful to see such enthusiasm here!" he exclaimed sarcastically. There were a few laughs, and his smile widened. "I'm sure you remember me from the boat ride over?" He asked. There was a cacophony of yeses in response, and he nodded. "Good, so introductions won't be necessary. Now, a fairy will tap you on the shoulder," he began, conjuring a horde of fairies, "before guiding you to your room, where you will be asked to identify the item on the floor." Taking a deep breath, he continued, "There are refreshments in the back. You will return with the item or items on the floor, and an answer to what it is." He closed his eyes for a few seconds, before opening his eyes again, and whispering, "Go."

A fairy landed on Harry's shoulder, before flying off, in the direction of a hallway. Harry followed the fairy, which was absolutely silent, to the door, where it stopped and seemed to be listening for something. Harry took advantage of the momentary lapse in the challenge to study the fairy. It appeared to be around four inches in length, and had iridescent wings, like that of a dragonfly. While Harry was examining the fairy, it began to keen, which Harry took as the cue to open the door.

On the floor of the small room, there were two small rectangular boxes, completely white, and on the back wall, there were refreshments, somewhat comically, milk and cookies.

Harry carefully approached the boxes, not bothering to look behind him as the door slowly closed, and tenderly reached towards the one on the right. He was relatively surprised when his hands went through the box for a few centimeters before being pricked by something sharp. It felt like quills, and judging by the size, he whispered to himself, "A Hedgehog?"

He quickly got out his wand, and cast the standard vocation dispelling charm on the box, and was unsurprised to see two wary hedgehogs staring at him from where the boxes had been before. They both rushed around the room awkwardly, since it appeared that he had accidentally dispelled the charms keeping them still, as well. He quickly cast the body bind spell that he had helped Daphne find a few nights before on the two hedgehogs, before getting out his monster book of monsters, pen and paper.

He quickly wrote out the Find command that Hannah had shown him, wrote 'Hedghog' in the input space, and wet it with a spell in order to attach it to the Monster Book of Monsters. He then stroked the spine of the book, and activated the command by forcing a little bit of magic through his fingertips, much as he had through his eyes to force the melanin out. He had tried to memorize the activation procedure, but it had had far too many Cyrillic and Hebrew characters for him to even begin to find a mnemonic for it.

The book quickly flipped through all of the pages, going from resting on the back to resting on the front. The rite had failed. Harry sighed, and looked at his procedure, and seeing that everything seemed correct, looked at his input. He rolled his eyes, realizing that he had misspelled Hedgehog, and corrected the spelling before giving the slip its activation energy again. This time, it flipped open easily to the page on Knarls. He read,

_Knarls. See figure K-10._

Harry looked at K-10, and decided that it indeed looked quite remarkably like a hedgehog.

_For the vision impaired, it looks like a Hedgehog. It's not. Hedgehogs like food, Knarls are vicious about food. That's how you differentiate between the two. You offer a hedgehog food, it'll be your friend for three hours. You offer a Knarl food, it'll try to kill you._

Harry smirked at the refreshment table. "Mr. Hagrid, you sure are a crafty bastard." Harry took four cookies, and after dipping them in milk, walked over to the first frozen hedgehog, to whom he offered two of the cookies. He amiably took them, and after he had finished them, Harry put him in another body bind, before charming the tip of his wand green and marking his quills.

Harry went over to the other animal, and crouched in front of it, rocking back and forth on his haunches as he flipped the animal two cookies, before dispelling the body bind. The animal took one look at the cookies, and gave a peculiar cross between a hiss and a growl before charging Harry.

Surprised, even though he had partially expected it, he began to fall on his ass, and the Knarl began to lope up his body, climbing onto his foot and quickly beginning its long journey to, presumably, his head. It was as though something large and scaly erupted into life in Harry's stomach, clawing at his insides: Hot blood seemed to flood his brain, so that all thought was extinguished, replaced by a savage urge to fight. As the Knarl clambered over his knee, he flung it into the air, rolled over onto his front, looked over his shoulder, and connected a beautiful kick with his heel on the underside of the vengeful albeit bewildered Knarl, flinging it across the room. It bounced off the wall and as it was recovering its senses, Harry threw a vicious _Petrificus Totalus _at it, a ghoulish crimson hue rather than the more familiar weak and semi-opaque pink. Its arms and legs immediately were strapped to its sides, and it let out a nearly metallic clank as it banged heavily, and not-so-gently to the floor.

Harry's elevated rate of breathing began to slow, and he took deep breaths as a horrible headache set in. He was terribly angry at himself for losing his temper so badly– it was almost as if he had had no power over himself, unable to do anything other than fight the poor creature as hard as he could. "Complete overkill," he murmured to himself as he picked up the suddenly petrous Knarl. There was no need to colour it red, he was sure that he could tell from its heft that it was the angry one.

Picking up the other Hedgehog, he swiftly walked back to where Granger was already presenting her Hedgehog and Knarl to Hagrid, who was check its species with a neat penlight that displayed much relevant information, from typical size to gestation period. While waiting in line behind Granger, the exhaustion of casting the powerful body bind caught up to him, and he sank to one knee. Granger raised an eyebrow, and Harry sighed, as he tried to get up, but couldn't.

"A hand, please?" he asked. She sneered, and obligingly held out a hand, which he grasped thankfully, and used to lever himself up.

"Good god you're light," she muttered.

"Gods," Hagrid corrected jokingly. Granger shot a sidelong glare at him, and he chuckled. "Full points, Miss Granger!" he announced happily. "Plus four for first in house and first in year, makes seven. Good show." He turned to Harry, and gestured for him to hand over his animals. Granger hung back, presumably waiting for Harry.

Harry did so, and explained, "The green one is the hedgehog, the heavy one is the Knarl."

Hagrid rotated the animal in hands, muttering, and checking it over with the penlight. Harry instantly saw that he had been correct in his identification, and felt a purr of satisfaction in the back of his mind. Suddenly, while inspecting the Knarl, Hagrid clicked his tongue. "What's this?" he asked, pointing towards a series of broken quills. Harry instantly recognized it as the spot where the Knarl had hit the wall, and sighed.

"The Knarl got a bit feisty after I gave it some cookies, Professor," Harry explained. "I had to subdue it a little roughly."

Hagrid nodded, grimly, and dropped the Knarl on the table, making the sound of rock on wood. "This is a class one Petrifaction job, ah, Mr. . ." he asked, fishing for a name.

Harry knew that he knew Harry's surname, from the incident in front of the castle, but figuring that he wanted to keep it a secret, decided to play along. "Potter, Professor Hagrid."

The enormous man smiled, "Ah, yes. Relative of James Potter? Extremely talented boy, although I wish he had paid a little more attention to his studies than his miscellaneous research. Great sense of sartorial values, too," he gave as an afterthought.

"Hmm," Harry grunted. He somehow couldn't bring himself to care. He chalked it up to the complete and utter exhaustion, and didn't think anymore on the subject.

"Well, you don't get the half point for not damaging the hedgehog," Granger silently and awkwardly punched a fist into the air, behind Hagrid, and he continued, "But, although I'm sure that your friend will be disappointed . . ."

"We're not friends," Granger muttered.

Hagrid continued, "You do get a point for your Class 1 Petrifaction, Mr. Potter, so you end up with five and a half points," Harry smirked triumphantly over Hagrid's shoulder, and Granger just glared. Hagrid chuckled a bit more, and asked curiously, "What spell did you use to induce the Petrifaction, Mr. Potter?"

"Just an overpowered _Petrificus Totalus_, sir, I panicked when the Knarl attacked," he responded quickly. He had his ideas as to whether or not it was actually panic, but said nothing.

Hagrid nodded. "That should do it. The spell was initially made to induce Petrifaction, but was thrown aside when it was realized that the amount of extra energy needed for Petrifaction could be more easily and efficiently used in a naturally more powerful spell, like _Petrificus_, which is ironically a significantly more difficult spell to perform at a basic level than the '_Totalus_'" he said, using air quotes to emphasize the meaning.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Harry exclaimed, "You teach illusions, right? Why are you proctoring the Magical Creatures challenge?"

Hagrid shrugged. "I like 'em, and one of the other illusions teachers is covering the illusions challenge for this week."

Harry nodded. "That sounds fair," he replied.

Hagrid shrugged again, and turned his attention to the next girl, who was triumphantly holding two squirming hedgehogs. Granger snorted, and nodded towards the piles of stuff by the door.

Harry gave her a quick nod, and they walked over to their items. Harry stuffed his trunk into his pocket, as did Granger. Seeing him glance at it in askance, she admitted, "I took a leaf out of your book." Harry smiled, and she glared again.

"What were we talking about last week?" he asked her, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"How much better I am than you in terms of points," she gloated. "What's your grand total now, excluding expenses? I've got twenty two," she bragged, her eyes twinkling.

"Oh really?" Harry exclaimed in feigned surprise. "Well I guess it sucks for me that I only have eleven and a half," he replied, giving a half-truth. He started walking back to R. Tower, not really in the mood for converting Granger to his cause, whatever his cause might be, but she stopped him in his tracks with a rough hand on his shoulder.

"Come on, Potter," she hissed. "I know you have more than that. Three from the boat, presumably seven from the last contest, five and a half here, and that's already more than fifteen. I don't want to know what you have after expenditures."

"Will you promise not to argue for an hour if I tell you?" Harry was compelled to ask.

"If it's impressive enough, then yes," she agreed.

Harry shrugged. "Thirty two," he informed her, before changing his path to go to the Library. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw her lips parted slightly in astonishment, eyes wide. "Come on, we're going to the library, and you can't argue for an hour."

She quickly followed him, completely silent. The room was slightly less full than usual, since many of the kids were still competing in challenges, and Harry grabbed an isolated table, where they could talk quietly. Granger sat across the table from him, and Harry smiled benevolently at her.

After another fifteen seconds of silence, Granger ferociously whispered, "So you figured out Magic class?"

Harry nodded. "The first week of school. There was a rune in the bottom right hand corner for silence and stoicism. Do you have Nectarus?"

Granger flushed, and nodded. "Uh, well, I didn't see that, I just didn't feel like moving to read my book, and suddenly, he was right in front of me. We discussed magic, and he gave me the assignment." She sighed. "So . . . have you done the assignment yet?" she asked.

"Yeah, I handed it in as soon as he assigned it. I'd been forced to write it before, after I got EME over the summer."

"EME?" she asked.

"Uh, clinical term for burnout," he replied, trying to forget Snape's admonition not to say burnout.

"Wait, you're bullshitting me," she began to reply, warily.

"No I'm not," he retorted.

"Yes you are!" she hissed back.

"No arguing," he reminded softly. She shut up, and he looked through his trunk for paper, which he pulled out, before showing it to her.

"Wait, that's three pages, not one," she began, after seeing the O.

"Yes, well, my taskmaster over the summer was slightly harder than this one," he said, cutting her off.

She sighed, and asked resignedly, "So how many points did you get?" she asked.

"Ten."

"Ten!" she exclaimed. "I got fucking four! How do you get off with ten?" she asked angrily.

"Sh, this is a library," Harry whispered angrily. "And you're dangerously close to arguing with me," he warned.

"I'm not arguing with you," she said heatedly.

"You're arguing with me."

"I'm not bloody arguing with you!" she forced out between gritted teeth.

"You are right now, Granger," he pointed out. She shut up again.

After around a minute of angry silence, he leaned forward in your chair. "So, were you always a bitch?" he asked conversationally.

"Shut the fuck up, Potter," she spat back at him.

"Is that a yes?" he inquired politely.

She paused for a second, before shaking her head once.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Any chance for a story on how you became one then?"

She smirked. "It's a dreadful tale of misanthropy and human trafficking–believe me, you don't want to know."

Harry smiled considerately. "Really?" he asked.

Replacing her smile with a neutral expression, she shook her head. "Fuck no, Potter. You think I've got some angst-filled story?"

"Well, I was hoping, but I suppose that beggars can't be choosers. Any chance you'll give me a straight answer?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Look, I agreed not to argue, not to tell the truth, dickwad," she muttered, resting her chin on her fist.

* * *

AN: Okay, I was going to continue, but couldn't think of anything to do with it. Thanks for the beta work, you know who you are, and I still need more people to bounce ideas off of.

By the way, if Hermione seemed out of character **considering the past chapter**, then please tell me, and please cite specific examples. It is extremely aggravating to me when people write things like,

"I've read about "magical exhaustion" or "magical depletion" long before this story, however, I'm not sure if it's such a big deal to "claim." A good story overall rather than a particular story point should be the goal! Also, the surname "Potter" does not derive from pots, plants, and herbology. Its derives from masonry. Good luck!"

Which isn't a flame really, but is dead wrong with the masonry bit. Potter is referring to the occupation of working with earthen clay vessels. I know that it's not to do with herbology, but I didn't feel like having Harry be a master of the pottery wheel, thank you. As well-- yes, magical exhaustion is used in most serious works of fantasy, so that not everyone is omnipotent. It functions as a limiter. I am not claiming that I invented it anymore than I am claiming that I invented Harry Potter. I have no idea where this comment goes from there.

If you're not going to sign in when you write your review, then at least please write your email. I reply to every review longer than two words.

Note: The chapter's title is from the song by Pete Seeger.


	10. And Your Bird Can Sing

_A/N: Sorry about making you wait for so long. I was going to post this on Monday, but alerts were down. I'm pretty sure they're back up now, so here we go. This chapter has little to no exposition (I'm sure some of you are celebrating wildly right now), and delves slightly deeper into the plot. There were parts of it that were extremely difficult to write, such as the Daphne scene at the end, so I'd like to hear your comments, whether you're going to completely drop the story, etcetera. Many thanks to the people at AFC, who helped me to get off my ass and finally complete this chapter. It's probably my longest as of yet, so you can kind of take that as a consolation prize for the long wait. I hope I'm not too rusty._

_ Anyway, here we go._

* * *

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Ten

A brown owl swooped by Harry's table, laying a small envelope at Harry's place, narrowly avoiding his cereal. It immediately flew back up, and circled the hall, before swooping by Harry's table again, laying another small envelope in front of him. Once more, it went through the process, dropping a third envelope in front of him. A third time, it left his table, and circled the room, but this time, it left the room, heading towards the library, or infirmary.

Harry glanced at the three envelopes, and after noting that they all had his name, pocketed them and decided to follow the owl. Judging by the behavioral patterns it had followed previously, he bet that it still had at least one letter to deliver, and he suspected that it would be interesting to see who he was grouped with.

Harry briefly signaled to his group that he was leaving, but Hannah, who was working on a new command for her circle for more efficiently doing her Spanish homework was the only person who noticed, and absentmindedly waved back. Neville had gotten over his shyness in front of Daphne, and was doing his damnable best to figure out how to flirt with her. He still hadn't realized that she knew what he was trying, and was playing 'hard-to-get' masterfully, although she had occasionally slipped up at some of his more awkward and forward flirts. Harry only wished that she worked as hard at finding new spells, or thinking of innovative ways of using her old spells as she did with pulling the wool over Neville's eyes, stories of which she gleefully regaled Harry with, of his many unsuccessful and crass flirts.

Harry jogged after the bird, which was making its way towards the library. It stopped short at the doors to the library, and settled on the perch outside of the library, as owls, and birds in general, weren't allowed in the library at all. Harry leaned on the wall, before sliding down, jarring his butt slightly as it hit the ground. He took the letters out of his pocket, and opened the first one. It read:

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_Please be at my office before the 1__st__ of October. There are aspects of your reward for coming in first place in your challenge on Saturday, the 8__th__ of September that have yet to be awarded._

_Sincerely,_

_Headmaster Dumbledore_

Harry smirked, and after quickly opening the other letters, he determined that they all said the same thing, albeit with different dates of the month. It figured that **she** would be in the library during dinner. It had been a couple of weeks since his last real conversation with her, back when they had gone to the Hospital Wing, and he found himself feeling glad to have the opportunity to chat with her again.

Harry walked in, and upon finding Granger, sat right next to her. Intentionally dropping his voice an octave, he gruffly muttered, "Hey."

Without looking up from her book, she whispered back fiercely, "You're not sitting in the right place."

"Wot?" he asked back, his voice still affected.

She traced an awkward rectangle in the table with her finger, still engrossed in her book. "The first person will sit at one corner of the table," she said, indicating roughly where her initial rectangle had started, "and then the second person will sit at the corner opposite from the first person, and the third person will sit across from the second person, and the fourth person will sit across from the first person, and the fifth person will sit directly in between the second and the fourth, and the sixth will sit across from the fifth person, and then the rest will fill in in such a way such that no two people are sitting right next to each other." All of this, she illustrated quite ably while still reading through her book, which Harry noted was on Transfiguration, coincidentally the last subject in which he had trounced her.

"And you're not even supposed to touch a table where there's another person already reading, unless there are no other free ones, and the table is the most empty of all of them. As it's dinner, around half of the tables are free. Go to one of those."

"Wot?" he asked again, barely keeping the laughter out of his artificially lowered voice.

She finally looked up from her book, her eyes filled with anger. "These are the implicit rules of Hogwarts Library. I believe that they are something like those attributed to using a uri–" processing Harry's grinning face, she stopped, opting instead to simply glare at him.

"Wot?" he asked again, his voice back to normal.

"Fuck you, Potter," she muttered. "What do you want?" she asked, all in one breath.

"There's an owl outside with your name on it, Granger," he replied, still controlling his mirth.

"I somehow don't see you training killer owls in your free time, Potter," she hissed angrily. "And keep your voice down. It's a fucking library."

Harry pursed his lips, for the first time since entering the library, losing his smile, concentrating on rectifying his mistake. He hadn't made one for a long time, and the headache was especially painful this time. However, he understood the need to control himself through the pain, and calmly whispered, "My apologies. The headmaster would like to see all of the students who finished in first place about winning the challenge."

Granger gave him a calculating glare, before looking around. She proceeded to pull out her wand, and after muttering a charm, drew her wand's tip across the page number at the top of the page. She closed the book, and Harry idly wondered if he should ask her about the spell, before deciding to do it later, after they had left the library. Granger scanned the book out through the checkout, and scowled at Harry.

"You'd think that they could have a more efficient checkout that would just tell when you left the library, and just checkout the book for you," she muttered to Harry, dropping her book into her backpack.

He thought for a second, before giving a gallic shrug. "I'm sure it's a civil liberties thing. The next step would be tracking the books, and ultimately tracking you. Not sure you really want Big Brother over your shoulder all the time."

Granger glared into the air as she thought about that. "Yeah, I see your point, although I truly think that Hogwarts library could keep a handle on exactly how far they steal your human rights. Maybe put identification devices on cloaks?"

"That would allow fairly simple identity theft, and make it easier to track you. Speaking of tracking, here's your owl."

Granger gave the owl a glare, and wrenched the letter out of its claws, before turning her attention back to Harry. "You win this time, Potter." The owl gave a disgruntled hoot, and flapped its wings frenetically, dropping a feather on Granger, before running off.

"It wasn't an argument, my dear Granger. Go on, open it up, let's see," he retorted cheerfully.

She gave him a condescending look, before tearing it open. It read nearly the same as Harry's, although it had a different date on it. She put it back into the envelope, and stuffed it into her backpack, before heading back into the library.

Surprised, Harry felt his headache coming back. There shouldn't have been any situations in which he was surprised. He'd have to analyze better next time. "Hey, Granger, where are you going?" he yelled, wincing at his own loudness as it reverberated through his aching head.

"Didn't you read the letter?" she shouted over her shoulder, heading into the library again. "Before October first, it's nearly a week away."

Harry sprinted to catch up to her, before she got back into the library, grabbing her arm. "Wait!" he commanded.

She immediately shook him off her arm, before turning. "Why?" she whispered, aware of her proximity to the library. "I can just do it later."

"Come on, we should go now, make a good impression, be prompt, show a united front," he pleaded quietly. "Besides, if he gives us something, don't you want to be able to use it as soon as possible?"

She looked at him, and sneered for a second, before getting a speculative look in her eye. "Okay, but you have to agree to a trade of information."

He looked at her with a guarded expression, unsure of whether or not it was worth it anymore, his continuing headache reminding him of the importance of analyzation. What kind of information had he accidentally revealed? Had she heard about anything that he could do, that made him weird? "What do you want?" he replied softly.

"Something that will give me a step ahead in the game, Potter. We're not all wizardborn, taught this from birth like you are. Give me something that will bring me closer to you," she said triumphantly. "What do you want?"

"The book where you found the page number spell," he replied, pulling her shoulder so that she was facing away from the library.

She nodded contentedly. "Promise?"

"Amen," he agreed. As they walked, he felt around in his pocket for his shrunken books, and pulled them out, glad that he had been reading through them earlier that day. He snapped his fingers, pushing a little magic out of them, and was disappointed to see nothing happen. Granger snorted, and he tried again, snapping his fingers harder, and pushing a little more magic out of them. The middle book enlarged, and he tossed it carelessly to Granger.

She grabbed it out of the air, and growled softly, before rolling her eyes. "Showoff," she accused, before turning the book over and looking at the cover. "Purebloods Are Better For Mudbloods?" she asked.

"It doesn't teach any actual magic, but it's a pretty comprehensive resource on pureblood customs. It's written by a pretty smart guy, who explains Pureblood supremacy pretty nicely, what parts of it he agrees with, what parts of it he disagrees with, and a lot of Pureblood customs," Harry explained calmly, as they strode toward the Headmaster's office.

"What's a Mudblood? And do you know where we're going?" she asked, calming down again.

"Mudblood is a nasty slur on muggleborns, like you, or people who have "muggle blood" in them. And I've been to the headmaster's office before."

Granger smirked. "Why, isn't _perfect _Potter just the _perfect _little troublemaker."

Deciding that he didn't really want to talk about exactly why he had gone to the headmaster's office, he raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Is that how you refer to me in your mind, Granger? Perfect? Well, I'm rather flattered, but I'm not sure that I can return the . . . "

She flushed, and looked straight ahead, murderously throwing the book into her bag. "Oh shut it, Potter," she hissed back at him. He smirked, and waited for her to calm down again. After she was calm, she asked in only a mildly irritated tone, "How bad a racial slur is mudblood?"

"Pretty bad," Harry replied immediately.

"N-word bad?" Granger asked, curious. "Or cracker bad?"

"N-word bad, definitely," Harry assured her.

She pursed her lips, and walked more quickly down the hall. "So the author is a racist asshole?" she asked angrily.

"Yup," Harry agreed.

"Are you a racist asshole?" she asked, becoming increasingly angry again, and lengthening her stride. Once again, Harry cursed his short stature, and began to jog to keep up.

"Nope," he declared happily. "Come on, we're almost there," he announced, panting slightly. They took a left from the corridor they were on, to the staircase leading to the Headmaster's office, and sprinted up it, two at a time in an informal race. At the top of the stairs, they both took a moment to slow their breathing, and to try to appear natural, smoothing out the wrinkles in their shirts, before knocking at the door.

The door slowly creaked open in response to their knock, and Harry strode in, closely followed by Granger. "Who is it?" the headmaster called out, not raising his head from the multitudinous papers on his desk.

"Harry Potter and Hermione–" Harry started off, before being interrupted by Granger.

"And Hermione Granger," she said, with a glare at Harry.

He raised his eyebrows toward her, before continuing, "We're here because of the letter you sent, summoning us to your office, since we finished first in challenges."

Finally, the headmaster looked up at them, a neutral look on his face. "Hmm, that was quick. The owl couldn't have gone out more than an hour ago. You both get half a point for punctuality." He turned around in his swivel chair, and rummaged around in what sounded like a file cabinet. "And why did you two come together? Are you part of the same team?" he called out, still facing away from them.

Granger abruptly turned to face Harry, to give him a sneer, but Harry ignored her, and answered the headmaster, "Well, since we're the winners, we figured that it would be nice to show a united front."

He gave a noncommittal grunt, before calling out again, "Why stop at two, then? Why not bring all of you?" He had a vaguely confused air about him, and Harry was reminded vaguely of something in the past, of someone else's confusion at a lack of knowledge. It was a peculiar, hazy memory, almost as if from another's life.

Granger gave Harry another glare, before Harry replied, "Well, we're all of the winners in our year."

He looked over his shoulder at them, and gave them appraising looks. "I'm sorry," he started, smiling disarmingly, "What're your names again?"

"Granger," she replied instantly.

Harry didn't say anything for a few seconds, but after seeing that Dumbledore was seriously asking for his name, even after having two meetings with him, he quickly replied, "Potter."

The headmaster nodded thoughtfully, before diving back into searching through his filing cabinet, plunging the other two inhabitants of the room into an uncomfortable silence. A minute later, he turned around, a veritable mountain of pamphlets in his hands. "What were the themes for the challenge of the first week, again?" he asked.

"Herbology, sir," Harry stated with an air of amusement. "I won that one."

"Er, a standard extraction/retrieval deal?" he queried, looking intently into Harry's eyes.

"Yes sir." he told him.

"Full points?" he asked, nearly before Harry could squeeze out 'sir'.

"Yes sir." he replied, mimicking Dumbledore's quick response time.

"Hmm . . ." he grumbled, levitating four or five thin books into the air with a flick of his wrist. He looked over them briefly, before pulling out a burgundy book, and tossing it carelessly to Harry.

"Second week?" he asked, tossing the rest of the Herbology books over his shoulder.

Harry watched the books rearrange themselves in his filing cabinet while Granger tersely responded "That was me", "Creatures", "Yes", and "Yes", to his questions.

The headmaster once more pulled out a thin book, and tossed it toward Granger, who caught it smoothly with one hand.

"Third week?"

"I won that one, it was Charms."

"Let me guess, standard Learn/Cast?"

"Yes sir. Full points with two point extra credit for a slightly more advanced and controllable form of the spell."

The professor's eyes glinted peculiarly, somehow reminding Harry of a wolf., once again, despite the fact that he had a wide and friendly smile on his face. "Oh, really? Do tell."

"Er, well, I looped _Jak_ and the faux fireworks spell, and the proctor was very pleased by the different shapes I managed to produce."

By now, Harry was nearly certain that Dumbledore was very intrigued, although his grin got a little confused on the way to his lips. He focused his sight around Dumbledore's eyes, and tried to figure out through which of his many wrinkles he managed to convey so much emotion. "Looping, oh? Did you think of using _Jill_?"

"_Jill_?" Harry asked, curious. Snape hadn't mentioned a spell called _Jill_ to him.

"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water," Granger muttered under her breath.

"Exactly. Sort of a misleading rhyme, since they're completely unsuited for that task, but a decent mnemonic. Here, the goal is solidification, incantation is Jill, wand movement is– well, the typical wand movement is a triangle, preferably starting from the top, equilaterally, but the more formal movement is a hexagon, divided into six equilateral triangles, like–well, just look."

He beckoned the two of them toward his desk, and on the back of a sheet of paper, traced out a hexagon, using a blue pen. The tip of the pen made small scritch-scratching noises, giving Harry the impression that it was a fountain pen. After finishing tracing out a slightly lopsided hexagon, he traced radii from a corner to the center, back to another corner, to the center, to another corner, and so on, until Harry could see exactly what he meant. "It's a pain, but makes it much easier to cast the spell. You try it." He drew several quick circles on the table with his wand, and in each of the circles, a pool of water formed.

Harry nodded, before concentrating. When water formed, it became a solid, and solids were usually smaller than water. Water was an anomaly, because ice had a crystalline structure, which through its greater order, forced water to expand. Imagining a lattice in his head, he realized, "It forces order, doesn't it, headmaster. That's why you chose water."

"Good, Potter. And what _is_ order?"

Harry was slightly confused by the question, and simply blurted out, "It's when everything is where it's supposed to be, it's when there's calm in the room, it's . . ."

Dumbledore's eyes looked disappointedly at Harry, and he trailed off into silence. "Rather, what _isn't_ order?"

"Disorder, chaos," Harry responded instantly.

"Good. The word I was specifically thinking of was entropy. And how does entropy relate to the universe as a whole?" he asked.

Harry was silent, and Granger, who Harry had forgotten was even there, piped up, "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."

"Very good, Ms. Granger. So you understand the difficulty of the spell," Dumbledore informed them. Still focusing on his eyes, Harry felt a smirk reach them, almost imperceptibly.

"Muggle upbringing is good for something, eh, Potter?" she almost-whispered to Harry. Harry saw an edge of surprise in Dumbledore's eyes, and an almost imperceptible momentary raise of the eyebrows, before they settled into their previous position.

Harry said nothing, opting instead to try the spell. He pulled his eyes out of their telescopic view, and focused them on the water, and on his wand. He quickly traced through the spell, thinking of the peace within that comes after great struggle, and was about to mutter the spell, when he moved his wand in the wrong direction. He grimaced, and heard, as if from far away, the voice of the Headmaster saying, "Start over, Mr. Potter." Granger, noticing that he was trying it, decided to get out her wand too.

With a triumphant whisper of "_Jill_," he was filled with the inner calmness that he had been thinking of, and the water swiftly and smoothly formed a short tower within the circle.

Dumbledore made a funny snorting noise with his throat, his eyes showing a very slight level of amusement. "On to the next challenge, methinks," he announced, his voice betraying nothing.

"Er, Headmaster," Granger started, tracing through the spell for her third time. "I can't get the water to do anything at all, could you give me a pointer as to what I'm doing wrong?"

Harry briefly brushed his fingers across the water that Granger was working on, before she swatted his arm away. He smirked, surreptitiously feeling a water that neither he nor Granger had worked on. Comparing the two, Granger's water was significantly colder.

Harry thought that Dumbledore's gaze grew slightly colder, although he had some measure of doubt–they could have grown more amused as well. Without his lens stretched out, he couldn't figure out if the regular wrinkles had appeared in his face that signaled when he was amused. Dumbledore lightly told her, still looking at Harry, "I'm not your tutor, Miss Kramer. You're allowed to work on the spell on your own time." Harry thought that Granger nearly bristled in anger, but was impressed at how well she maintained her temper, considering her usual temperament.

Her one quiet retort was, "It's Granger, sir. Hermione Granger."

Dumbledore nodded vaguely in acknowledgment before he turned his head to face towards Harry again. "And can I safely assume that you won the fourth week's challenge?" he asked Harry kindly. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Granger tremble, and wished that he had seen the exact emotions that had crossed her face–he had a feeling it would be difficult to predict her actions in the near future. She pulled out her book and began to leaf through it angrily, giving Harry the general gist of her feelings by how violently she was turning the pages. He gave a brief nod.

"It was shaping, yes?" Dumbledore asked, pushing the majority of the thin books off of his desk.

"Yes sir," Harry told him, "wood. Full points."

"Shaping, shaping . . . well, I guess this is close enough." After benevolently handing Harry a newer looking book, although still quite slim, the old wizard abruptly gave them a brief military salute, presumably dismissing them.

Harry sent a questioning look at Granger, who sent a glare back, before stomping out of the room as quietly as possible. Harry quickly followed, trading in the chuckles that he wanted to release for a small smile on his lips. She continued to progress forward with some amount of speed, and Harry, with his significantly shorter stature, was forced to jog to keep up. "Hey, Granger," he panted, after nearly a minute of walking.

"What," she seethed.

Harry smirked through his labored breaths, wishing that he hadn't let his muscles atrophy as far as they had. "Could you either slow down, or help me with my books? I mean, you got off easy, with only one book–these books are really, you know, weighing me down, since I have so many of them," he teased, barely able to keep the laughter out of his words.

"Oh, sod you, sod that old fucker, and sod your stupid fucking books," she muttered, pulling her book out of her pocket. "I skimmed through them, they're worth less than the shit that comes out of your ass."

"Opposed to the other kind of shit?" Harry asked innocently. Granger gave him a basilisk stare, and Harry laughed, before asking, "How so?"

"They're fucking pamphlets for shitty fucking wand goddamn movements that I already . . ."

This time, Harry did laugh. "Shitty fucking?" he interrupted jovially. "Sounds like a sick kind of scatological fetish to me, Granger. Maybe you should be seeing a therapist?"

"Fuck you," she hissed menacingly, before pulling the book out of her pocket and throwing it as hard as she could at him, hitting his squarely in the forehead, and forcing him to drop the books that he was carrying as his hands leapt up instinctively. As Harry stopped to pick them up, she picked up her pace, out of the Great Hall. He noticed that she hadn't taken the book with her, and decided to take it himself.

"Her loss," he whispered, inwardly cursing as he felt a headache coming on. He quickly rationalized that he'd of course return it if she ever wanted it, and that by picking it up for her and holding it in safekeeping, he was actually doing her a favor, and the headache reluctantly receded.

Harry sat down on the steps, stuffing the books in his enlarged pockets before casting _Tempus_. He had around an hour before his group had planned on meeting, so he walked back to the dormitories to take the opportunity to do his daily "hour" of reading in the OR. He was pretty happy with his space–they had just finished their first marking period, and many of the Ravenclaws had gotten merit points for finishing with O grades, and had moved out of the dormitory, so now he had considerably more space, and he had pushed a few of the beds together for greater comfort. Harry brought his new acquisitions into the OR, wondering idly if any of them would explain how he could fuse together two mattresses, and looked through the titles. They were pretty brief and to the point. Out of "Non-specific Summoning Charm"_, "_Switching Charms", "Kappas", and "Properties of Stinksap".

Harry had had a pretty easy time with charms so far, stinksap didn't sound all that appealing, and from what he had read about Kappas, they were a little dangerous for a first year to be handling, so it was an easy decision to go with one of the charms books. Summoning sounded fairly interesting, so he opened the book to the first page. Surprisingly, it had neither the typical list of other books by the author, nor a publisher's page, and started with the title page. Curious, he turned the page, which was mostly blank space, although along the top it was written, "_Put your hand palm down on the paper, and wait five seconds._" Rather excited, he put his hand on the sheet, spreading his fingers as wide as they could go, wondering whether or not other students had had to scrunch their fingers together, and counting in his head. After he got to fifteen, he lifted his hand, feeling rather foolish.

Harry glanced through the book, but they were mostly tips on the summoning charm, and not actually explaining how to do the initial casting, or even the incantation. He irritably pulled himself out of the OR, before dumping the useless books on his bed, and pulling out the book on staffs that Ollivander had given him. Angrily, he tore through the preface, before alighting on the first chapter, one that told a magnificent story of the building of the first staff. 170 pages through, he was rudely kicked out of the Other Reality, but he had gotten through to the end of the story, and it was a magnificent one.

A proud Egyptian mage, millenia ago, rides his camel into the East. He has heard tales of a town ravaged by monstrous beasts that descend from the sky, and rip up the last of the remaining forest in the south of Canaan, presumably for their nests. The soil erodes further and further without the trees' roots too hold it together, and the wizards' spells are for the long-term–the trees will be long lived, but it's for naught if they're already gone. He approaches the den of the beast–it's a dragon, thirty feet high and five feet wide at it haunches. He has heard tales of them, but not of how to kill them. He notices that the underbelly is soft, and could be damaged, and returns to the oasis to gather materials. He comes across a partially uprooted balsa tree, bowtruckles awkwardly surrounding it, dying. He approaches, and tears off a long branch. A wood sprite, pale white, rushes out of it, and into another tree.

He makes armor out of the skins of antelope found around the mountain, and carves strong runes of protection, augmented by his blood, into the armor. He comes across the dragon, and faces it head on, running into its midst with his makeshift spear, ready to carve into the underbelly. The dragon slashes three times with its claws, and each time, the magic armor protects him. Finally, the dragon rears up, intending to crush him mightily, but the mage takes the opportunity to skewer the dragon. His branch runs through its liver, through its diaphragm and a great deal of lung, and punctures the heart as the dragon comes down. Blood runs through the porous balsa, and the dragon dies, violently. The soul of the dragon, constantly inundated by magic, and well aware of the world, feels two distinct possible futures, a warm, blood-ridden place, and a cold, harsh nothing. In a split second it enters the staff, and the dragon's body crashes down on the man's. Because of his armor, he lives, but he feels the runes failing under the immense weight. He reaches for his expensive imported sandalwood wand, but cannot, the monster's mass pinning his arm, he remembers that the staff is made of wandwood, and breathes out the clunky levitation charm of the pre-Romans. He feels the dragon's weight pulling quickly off of him, the charm responding much quicker and more smoothly than with his usual wand, and stands, pushing intestines out of his face, moving the dragon a few feet to the side. He drops the spell, the monster falls with a reverberating crash, and he happily walks back to the village, glad that his life is safe, leaning as if it were a walking stick on his make-shift spear, drenched in blood.

Harry gradually shook himself out of his reverie, and wondered if maybe he should take a closer look at the book on Kappas, before realizing that he should have been meeting with his group five minutes ago. He sprinted to the pre-arranged meeting place, and was slightly disappointed to see them relaxing, instead of having started without him. They didn't notice him as he stepped in through the door, and he cleared his throat to get their attention. Neville smiled, and turned around from the desks he and Daphne were sitting on. Harry spared a glance towards Hannah. She was reading from a player's manual to an Other Reality that Harry remembered her mentioning.

Neville indicated for Harry to come over to where the three of them were, and smirked at Daphne, addressing Harry. "We were just discussing the worst pickup lines ever, Potter."

After a few seconds of silence, Harry realized that a response was expected, and eloquently replied, "Oh?"

Neville snorted, before poking Daphne. "Ooh, I just remembered one." He scooted his desk over so that it was right next to Daphne's, and asked her, "If you were a pirate, would you have your parrot on _this _shoulder," he said, placing his hand on the shoulder closest to him, "or would you have it on _this_ shoulder," he asked, resting his hand comfortably on her other shoulder. They both laughed, and Harry noticed with some degree of annoyance that Neville's hand didn't move from its place, and rolled his eyes.

"Come on ladies," he instructed, drawing a single short laugh from Neville, "We have work to do. Daphne, you start," he commanded. Hannah put her book away in her pocket, and looked intently at Daphne, who awkwardly pulled a wand out of her pocket.

"Er, okay. This spell is _Protego_, and it creates a small shield around a wand that will reflect most low-level curses, and is best used when you're hiding your main body behind something, but need to be casting curses when putting your wand in, uh, danger." Harry irritably noticed that she was using nearly the exact same words that he had used to teach her the spell when she had come to him yesterday, distraught because she couldn't find a suitable charm. He grimaced, and focused his eyes on her lips, deciding that trying to figure out how to read lips was probably a useful talent for an optomancer like he aspired to be. It was fairly easy since he could hear her, and he wondered if there was a way of preventing himself from hearing her without actually silencing her.

The other two practiced the shield, but Harry decided not to show them his. He had tried the spell by itself, and it had grown far too big, and dissipated in front of his eyes, a great deal of magic wasted for no real gain. He could get it to work by using Jak, but that required a great deal of finesse that he didn't really feel like using, still restless from his time stationary in the Other Reality. Instead, he helped Daphne aid Neville and Hannah in figuring out the shield. Hannah finished it first, and after Daphne threw a few disarming hexes into the shield, after which they dissipated, she went back to her reading. It took Neville a good deal more effort, since it took the three of them several minutes to realize that he was holding too far up on his wand.

After Neville's shield had been pronounced good by Daphne, Harry slid off of his desk again, and addressed his audience. "I'm going to teach the three of you a neat fire spell called _Jak_. It has two ways of functioning–it can create a cool image in the air, and it can make people dance."

Neville asked, "There's a spell called Tarantallegra. Is that any different?"

Harry nodded. "I've read about that spell." He held up four fingers, and pushed down a finger with every point. "First of all, that spell only affects the feet. Second of all, that spell builds on this one, so you won't be able to perform that one correctly without knowledge of this one. Third of all, you don't need to know how to dance for that one to function, and last of all, this spell is much easier to execute, and requires little to no knowledge of magical theory. Any other questions?"

There were none, and Harry set about showing them the wand movements, and explaining how the _Jak_ was to be pronounced, hard, with an almost popping sound. None of the three had any real success for the first two minutes, and Neville simply gave up, telling Harry that probably his family's familiarity with water prevented him from learning. Harry had a feeling that Neville was just looking for an excuse to give up so that he didn't need to feel like an idiot anymore, but said nothing.

Reflecting upon his initial difficulty with the spell, he ordered, "Stop." The two girls did, looking at him quizzically. "What are you thinking about right now?" he asked.

They looked at each other, and shrugged. "Nothing much," Daphne answered. "Jak. Why it's a popular name. Jack and the Beanstalk, jumping jacks, jacks, just stuff." Harry looked at Hannah, who replied that she was thinking pretty much about similar things.

Harry grimaced. "Well, think about dancing, and about fire, and not about Jack. That's not the important part of the spell. The important part is the product."

Daphne snorted, stowing her wand in her back pocket. "Right, because negative vibes are preventing me from casting this stupid spell."

Harry narrowed her eyes, giving her a calculating look, before turning to Hannah. "And you?" he asked, not revealing any of his aggravation in his face.

In answer, she tried again. Harry and Hannah kept on trying the spell, while Neville and Daphne talked quietly. After thirty seconds of not getting the spell, her pronunciation becoming worse, her wand movements become sloppy, Harry decided that he would have to resort to drastic measures. "Stop," he ordered her again. He moved so that he was standing behind her, and whispered into her ear, "Collect yourself. Your movements were getting sloppy, departing from the original. You forgot to put a pop in your incantation." Harry saw her nod, and smiled. "Have you finished collecting yourself?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," she whispered back.

"Close your eyes. Just imagine what I describe." He took a deep breath, and began, the words seeming to rush together. "You're in a room, no one else is in it, you're all by yourself, the walls are mostly orange, but there are streaks of blue and red in there. You begin to dance. You're dancing, everything's warm, you're on fire, you _are_ fire, and you're dancing, you flicker, you curve, and–" he stopped his improvisational speech, and asked, "You know the tango, yes?" She shook her head no, and he finished abruptly, "Well too bad. One, two, three, cast." His countdown was staccato, and the last word was forte. She cast.

"_Jak!_" she spelled. Harry saw a marvelous orange ball of fire erupt out of her wand, heard Daphne and Neville exhale quick gasps, and mischievously cast his own, intent on repeating the trick that Snape had pulled on him. She actually led him on a merry chase, surprisingly skilled at maneuvering the ball, putting on a good show for the two onlookers despite her lack of training, although he finally caught up after a few minutes, and was about to consume her _Jak_ when she visibly shuddered, the ball disappeared, and she dropped to her knees.

Harry raced around so that he was facing her again, and asked her, panicking slightly, "What's wrong?"

Tears began to seep out of her eyes, and she panted heavily. "I . . ." she licked her lips, tears still coming out of her eyes. "I don't know . . . " she muttered. She moved her right arm from its place, dangling on the floor, to a few inches above where it was, before returning it to its place. "I'm exhausted, although it's a sort of . . . bizarre," she yawned, "sort of exhaustion. I sort of feel fine, and I'm sort of too lazy to go anywhere" She reached her arm up again, this time managing to wipe the tears from her eyes. "I don't even know why I'm crying," she said quietly.

Harry pulled a silver object, with a small clear screen and two short rods protruding from one side, from out of his pocket, and poked the two rods into the back of her neck. The screen lit up, and gave a red-orange color. Harry cursed, and motioned for Daphne to come over.

Harry kneeled down next to Hannah. "Come on, Hannah, you're nearly magically exhausted. I'm sorry. I must have unintentionally–" he began, before realizing that he shouldn't make excuses. He _knew_ that. "I must have pushed you too hard," he tried again, "and I apologize."

Hannah smiled at him through tear filled eyes, and put an arm around Harry's shoulder. "That's alright. It was fun, and isn't that what we're here for?" Harry was a little bit shocked, but masked it by simply smiling.

Daphne came over, Hannah slid her other arm over Daphne's shoulder, and the four of them walked down to the Hospital. Harry gave a small smile when she nodded towards him when she was able to pay for the Hospital's services in merit points instead of currency, but he remained otherwise silent and unresponsive for the rest of the trip. What _was_ he there for?

Four hours later, after a fun albeit brief bout of Frisbee, Harry was trying to figure out the least amount of magic necessary to slightly levitate a slice of paper, when it occurred to him that he should check the time. A quick tempus later, he determined that he was a few minutes late for his first meeting with The Vikings, and he ran up R. Tower to the pre-decided meeting place. Two minutes later, he was frantically pacing back and forth on the seventh floor in front of the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy, wondering where the hell the supposed meeting room was. Turning on his heel, he gave one final glare at the blank wall, when he realized that there actually _was_ a door there.

Quickly, half afraid that it would disappear again, he rushed in, still panting from his run up the stairs. The first thing that he noticed was many people, sitting in chairs in a circle. The door slammed shut again, and an Asian girl, a little older than him, turned in her seat, and smirked, looking to Harry's left. He looked where she was looking, and saw a gun-like device set up, aimed straight at him. The great scaly beast erupted in his stomach again, and he let loose a guttural growl as he jumped straight toward the apparatus as it let loose a strong gush of water. He very barely managed to stay on his feet, fighting it the entire way, the beast in his stomach roaring approval through the rushing blood and water that resounded in his ears.

Within a few seconds, the water slowed to a drip, and Harry got to the mechanism, before punching it straight on. His knuckles bleeding, his heart still beating quickly, and its pieces on the floor, he panted, bending over and resting his hands right above his knees, and there was a sudden and absolute silence in the room. Abruptly, the Asian girl started laughing.

"He's good," she stated happily. "I don't even know if that kind of a response is covered in psychology books. No flinching, no dodging, no indignant sputtering, there wasn't even the given pause for deciding fight or flight. That was just . . ." she got up out of her chair, which sunk into the floor as she crossed it. Harry noticed that the water was sort of surreally disappearing as it touched the floor, and stood up straighter as she extended her hand. "I'm impressed, Harry Potter. I am Madame Cho Chang, and alongside Messieurs Fred Graham and George Fergo, we make up Therapists."

She turned to the rest of the group, which numbered roughly twenty, in comfortable and large chairs in a slew of different colors, and addressed them, "Vikings. We, Therapists, nominate Harry Potter to become Monsieur Harry Potter."

A beautiful but nondescript and average girl with thinly rimmed glasses slowly uncurled from her forest green chair to come to a standard sitting position. "For whom, Messieurs of Therapists?"

The girl, presumably Cho Chang pointed at Harry, who was wringing water from his drenched shirt. "Harry Potter will become the first of the Pillagers, Madame Miranda Biggerstaff of The Marauders."

"Duly noted, Madame Cho Chang of Therapists," Miranda replied calmly. "He shall be moved to the For Review section." She looked gravely around the room, before curling up in her chair again. She yawned, and asked, "Does anyone have any shit that they need to address, or any books to turn in? I just want to review this dude and bugger off to bed. I'm bloody exhausted."

Either Fred or George raised a single digit into the air, and agreed, "Seconded."

No one said anything, and Cho sat down in the black chair that materialized out of the floor. Miranda gestured for Harry to go to the middle of the group, where a small wooden platform protruded from the ground, clashing with the maroon carpet. He stood on it, and looked expectantly at Miranda.

"Full name, including middle?" she asked, as if by rote.

"Harry James Potter," he responded, slightly distracted, still squeezing water out of his shirt.

"Is Harry a nickname?"

"No ma'am," he answered politely.

"That's madam to you, little boy," she sneered, pointing her pencil at him and jotting something down on her clipboard.

"Yes madam," he replied again.

"House and standing?" she asked.

"Ravenclaw, first year, Madam," he shot back after a moment's thought.

She groaned, and massaged her temple with her eraser. "No, you dullard, House Potter, just say fucking House Potter."

"Not quite, Mira," the blond boy sitting to her right corrected. "Houses Potter and Evans are both currently under his control."

"Is this true?" she asked Harry, peering at him over her glasses. Harry noticed that they were a slightly startlingly clear shade of blue, and nodded slowly. Her eyes dropped back to the clipboard, and he saw her make several quick hand motions over it.

She looked around, and asked, "Is there anyone here who's enemies with either House Potter or House Evans?"

"House Evans is only in its second generation and has no enemies as of yet, Mira," the boy piped up again.

She gave him a frosty stare, and he smiled disarmingly back at her. She sighed, and raised her eyebrows. He gave another nod, quicker this time. She sighed again, and asked, "Well then, is there anyone here who's enemies with House Potter?"

Seven or so people raised their hands, a cluster of people surrounding Mira, and four other people scattered through the group. Mira sighed. "Serious or well established feuds only, no slights, people."

Six of the seven put their hands down, although Harry was pretty sure that one of the three surrounding Mira tapped her on the shoulder, to which she nodded back impatiently. One of the hands stayed up, before falling as Mira groaned.

A girl with thick black hair tied back into a bun, maybe four years older than Harry, raised her sunglasses so that they were sitting on her forehead. "Sorry Mira, me again," she said, not sounding at all apologetic.

"Fucking Snapes," she muttered. "Okay, is there any way that we can avoid all of the ritual bullshit?" she asked, clearly frustrated.

"Potter, are your relatives still in the UK?" the black haired girl asked quickly.

"Yes, but six feet under," he responded promptly, hands once again at his sides.

"We're good," she informed Miranda.

Half of her face curled into a grin, and she nodded. "Excellent. Past awards and services from the school?"

One of the Weasleys stood and walked over to where Harry was standing. "I can cover this, Mira." He slapped Harry's back, and proudly announced, "He got out of Magic Class on the first day, for one." He bent over to Harry's ear, and whispered, "You won any of the Games so far?"

"Yeah," Harry whispered back.

"And he's won a Game. More than Fred or I could boast last year. He's in," he stated decisively.

Miranda tapped her pencil on her leg, speculatively. "You appear to have hit nose gold this time, gents,"she congratulated grudgingly.

"He's not an ass nugget," Fred remarked, sounding highly satisfied.

"Truth. One more question, Potter. Why did Fred and George approach you?"

"Not sure, Madam. Frisbee, I suspect," he replied earnestly.

"Hmm. Good enough. All in favor of membership?" she asked.

Slightly over half of the people raised their hands, and slowly more and more people raised their hands, until everyone was raising their hand except for Miranda and Harry.

Miranda grunted and shrugged. "You're in on a trial basis for now, Potter," she informed him casually, once more uncurling from her seat. "Meeting adjourned. Therapists, debrief the new kid."

"Sure thing, Mira," Fred told her pleasantly as the rest of the kids ambled out of the room. A maroon chair, matching the deep carpet slowly popped out of the floor. "Sit down, Monsieur Potter," he ordered Harry.

Harry sat down, and listened intently to Cho, who had draped a leg over the arm of one of her chairs. "You will go out in search of other members for your group, which is the Pillagers. Also, have you already obtained the book from winning the Game?"

Harry gave a single, short nod. "Yes, but the books are short and not very helpful."

She shook her head no. "You have to put your hand on one of the pages, it should be noted on the book–just do it tonight before you go to bed. You won't be disappointed," she paused for a second, as if collecting her thoughts. "I don't suppose you had the foresight to ask who the other winners were?" she asked hopefully.

"The only other winner was a girl named Hermione Granger, she's a muggleborn Gryffindor," he told them nonchalantly.

Fred's eyebrows raised impressively in response to this statement. "She won three contests? Her first month?"

Harry shook his head. "No, _I_ won three contests my first month."

George gaped for a second, before joining Fred in smiling widely. "You're _definitely_ not an assnugget, Monsieur Potter."

He nodded in thanks, before inquiring, "But why do you need to know the other winners?"

Cho shrugged. "From what we've heard from my buddies about your teammates, they aren't up to snuff. You might end up having to change teams if you want to stay in the ladder. It's going to be very uncomfortable to be in a ladder if the rest of your team isn't. Besides, have they even figured out the first Magic Class yet?"

Harry shook his head, and considering disappointments, he scratched his head sheepishly. "By the way, sorry about breaking your water gun thing. I'm not sure what came over me."

Cho grinned. "Nah, it's fine. It was made out of transfigured parts, and you can't really help if you have a really kick ass trait of blood, can you?"

Harry grabbed his left arm with his right arm, forcing himself to look at Cho no matter how awkward he felt. He _knew_ that he mustn't be a weenie. "Actually, the Potter bloodline runs with Herbology, so I really have no idea what that was."

George snorted. "Maybe it's a new one? Either way, it was very cool. Anyway, you're on a trial basis until you do something to shake up the school a little bit. Be creative. We'll look forward to it."

Harry nodded slowly, ideas running through his head. The four of them stood up, and walked out the door. As they were walking down the stairs, Harry asked, "By the way, why are there only three of you?"

"Number four moved to the Big Apple across the pond, kid," Cho informed him. "We're shopping around, but we still haven't found anyone with the right disposition in our year."

Harry looked at her quizzically. "Disposition? I can't imagine that it's that difficult to find someone who would mind to mix things up at Hogwarts."

Fred groaned. "Shit, we forgot to explain everything. We'll talk another time, Harry, but long story short, an old tradition is that different rungs have different dispositions." Without another word, the three of them walked off, presumably to their rooms.

Harry bit his lip, before opting to go to dinner. It was a little earlier than usual, but he didn't really feel like studying or practicing magic. When he arrived at the Great Hall, he was pleasantly surprised to see his group, sans Hannah already there, chatting amongst themselves. He ambled over to their table, wondering what they had been doing after he had left them.

"Neville," he began, sitting down next to him.

Neville, laughing from one of Daphne's comments, turned to Harry in surprise. "Oh, hey. What?" he asked casually.

Harry shrugged. "Nothing, just wondering what you guys have been doing."

Neville smiled, and nodded at Harry. "Right. Well, we kept on playing frisbee after you got too tired–" he paused before pretending to cough over his utterance of, "midget." After Daphne's giggles had ceased, and he was sure that Harry was still smiling placidly, he continued, "Then we played some exploding snap, and then . . . we came down here, right Daphne?" She nodded happily.

"What Neville is leaving out, however, is that I soundly kicked his arse at exploding snap. What have you been doing, Harry?" she asked, soft glee punctuating her voice.

Harry shrugged, before grabbing a good deal of food, and putting it on his plate. After his plate was heavily laden with food, he answered, "Well, I worked on a few different spells, studied a little, and got some homework done." Harry sighed, before snappishly adding, "I wish I could say that we were all pretty productive, although it appears that, well, we weren't." He rushed this sentence out, before jabbing a potato and stuffing it in his mouth, as if to prevent himself from saying anymore.

Neville immediately stopped smiling, and turned fully towards Harry. "Come on, Harry," he cajoled. "We're at Hogwarts, we're not just here to kick ass and learn stuff, we're also here to have fun. These are going to be the best years of our lives, might as well kick back, relax and have fun, especially while our homework loads aren't that heavy. Chill out a bit."

Harry looked expectantly at Daphne, who quickly nodded. "Yeah," she added helpfully.

Harry swallowed his food, looked back down at his plate, and vigorously attacked his meal. An awkward and near silent half hour passed, interrupted only briefly by Daphne's light hearted teasing of Neville for farting loudly. Neville soon stalked off grumpily, at least slightly put off by Harry's obvious aggravation.

Daphne made to follow Neville, but Harry, still chewing some particularly chewing beef motioned for her to stay. She did, albeit with clear trepidation. Harry finished his meal, and stood up, motioning for her follow him. The two of them walked to where they usually met for their group meetings, and Harry sat on a desk in the room. She imitated him, and sat there, waiting.

After a few seconds, Harry bluntly began, "I'm disappointed." Daphne said nothing, simply looking off to the side, while Harry continued, "In you. I figured that you'd pick up the slack in the group, work your ass off now that you've failed your family and I've given you a second chance," Daphne winced, "but I was clearly wrong. What will it take for you to go on and fucking grow a pair?" Harry asked, rhetorically and assertively.

Daphne stayed quiet as Harry kept his tirade going. "I go off for a few hours, study my ass off, find a neat new spell that _you're_ probably going to use for your contribution to this group, and what do you do? You go and goof off with Neville fucking Longbottom. Do you have any excuse for your unreasonable behavior?"

Daphne looked defiantly back into Harry's eyes. "I don't need an excuse to bond with a teammate," she informed him challengingly.

"I beg to differ," he sneered, losing every pretense of remaining calm, and feeling a headache coming on, "if that bonding is going to get in the way of your helpfulness to the group. Did you even check up on Hannah, who's hospitalized, while you were playing with Neville's emotions?"

She visibly flinched, before standing up, and leaning forward aggressively. "That's a bullshit accusation. Did _you_ go to check up on Hannah, while you were solitarily studying? Just because you're an uptight bitch doesn't mean that the rest of us have . . ." she stopped, before letting her frown slowly turn into a smirk. "Oh, I understand now," she remarked slowly, with a superior tone, rolling back onto her heels.

"What?" Harry asked, irritably.

"You're jealous of Neville, aren't you, Harry, you just want _me_," she told Harry smugly, whispering out the word 'me' breathily.

Harry's anger disappeared, leaving only his headache, and curiosity. Was she right? Was that the real reason for his being irked? He examined her closely, paying close attention to the feelings that he experienced while his eyes raked her body. She licked her lips nervously, seeming to lose steam, before looking away from him awkwardly and blushing.

Harry shook his head. "No, I don't have a crush on you, Daphne. I just want you to pull your weight in the group."

She met his eyes again, her face still flushed red. "Well, maybe _you_ should pull _your_ weight in the group, Potter," she countered angrily. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't give any good spells at all to the team. At least through me, worthwhile hunting spells are given. What the hell is _Jak_, that shit isn't useful for anyone."

Harry narrowed his eyes, before his frown, too, turned into a smirk, and he pulled out his wand, jumping off of his desk. "How about we have a duel, right here, right now, where the only spell I use is _Jak_, and you use your entire repertoire of spells. Sound good?"

She thought for a second, before nodding determinedly. "Fine, Potter, I'll give you the opportunity to lose to me," she laughed, backing away from him, and brandishing her own wand. She turned sideways, feet two feet apart, before, asking, "What do we actually do here?"

Harry shrugged, glancing around the room. "I think that we count to three, bow, then fight until one of us has control, or submits."

Daphne nodded, and started the count, "One," before Harry joined her on, "two." Her voice was shaking a bit on "Three," but she bowed with her back straight, eyes staring at Harry while he bowed toward her as well.

Without further ado, Harry dove under one of the desks. Undaunted by Daphne's mocking laugh following his action, he quickly tossed his wand from his dominant, right hand to his left, and whispered, "_Jak, Jak_." A small red ball appeared above his hand, and gradually grew out into a thin red line as he looped the spell around itself, snaking it across the floor, and around to Daphne's feet, although he restrained from letting it touch her. He watched her feet moving across the floor to the other side of the room, figuring that she thought that he'd be unable to physically or magically overpower her all the way across the room, and let the red line follow her unobtrusively. Once she was all the way across the room, and it was obvious from the set of her feet that she had taken her initial dueling stance again, he leapt up from under the desk, and let the red line sink first into his hand, and then into her leg.

Confused at the sudden warmth, and change in her stance to match Harry's, she muttered, "What the fuck . . ." and screamed as she realized that she had completely lost control of her movements, and was making seemingly random small steps to the right, left and in circles.

Harry laughed, making the same small steps in various directions. "This is as close to disco as I know, and you should have researched _Jak_ before insulting it, Daphne. There's a form of the spell that forces someone else to perform a dance that the caster knows, and although I'm not knowledgeable enough to cast that one, I can quite easily manipulate the spell to make it so that your dance mimics my dance perfectly." Harry clenched made a fist with his right hand near his left thigh, and flung it open when his arm was fully extended again, his hand in the air above and to the right of his head. On Harry, the motion was simply a bad imitation of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, but on Daphne, the actions was flinging her wand to the corner of the room, and she cursed up a storm.

"Bugger you, Potter. I'm gonna fucking stab you, you cuntrag," she cursed, eyes wild.

Harry chortled cruelly again, and told her snidely, "It turns out that can force someone else's movements with _Jak_. But once that person is defenseless, it can be used to simply . . ." Harry paused, before giving her a significant grin, while still doing Travolta's trademark move from Saturday Night Live, "humiliate your opponent." With a small twist of his wand, Harry dropped the initial _Jak_, leaving only the one on Daphne. She quickly grew silent, and looked at Harry, eyes slightly glazed over, walking towards him steadily, feet going one foot directly placed in front of the other. Harry looked at her, eyebrows raised, not recognizing the dance, although that wasn't saying much, considering his limited knowledge of dance, and feeling safe considering that she wasn't heading for her wand.

A few feet away from Harry, she tilted her head to the right, letting her long black hair fall over her face, and she raised her left hand slowly, to his cheek, which she held for a long second. Harry was beginning to regret his decision not to move back, feeling more than a little hot and bothered, opting not to drop the spell only because of her close proximity and much greater size.

She took a step back, and began to slowly unbutton the lowest button on her shirt. Harry cleared his throat awkwardly, completely nonplused by her action. She tossed her head back, and Harry clearly saw a burning red face, with small rivulets of tears coursing down it.

Harry took a step back, and pursed his lips, before dropping the spell. Instantly, she slumped to the ground, and began sobbing. Harry closed his eyes, sighed, and walked out toward the door. Right before leaving, he turned back, and quietly told her, "I'm going to visit Hannah."

Daphne responded only with sobbing harder, and he walked out, muting her cries to his ears by closing the door behind him. He leaned on the wall, resting his forehead on the cool stone, before composing himself, and walking towards the hospital.

Sitting next to a sleeping Hannah, reading about Ancient Runes, he realized that he hadn't had a headache since their one-sided "duel" had begun. He missed it in an odd way, and wondered why, as he painstakingly traced the rune for safety into Hannah's bed. It was most puzzling.

* * *

_(Fin.) _

_Oi, by the way, I started a forum for the story on my profile page, but haven't posted anything in it because I was unsure of whether or not anyone wanted to discuss it, or whether there was enough to discuss. So . . . someone will probably have to start a new topic if he/she is interested. I'd love to hear your opinions, and if there are any plot holes, loose strings (I'm not Murakami, I'm not brave enough to leave you hanging for forever), grammar mistakes, or anything. I'll either change it, or somehow alter future chapters to clear it up. You could also discuss the plot, or what you've seen of it so far._

_The title of the chapter is a song by the Beatles, which I picked because I really like it, and because I felt like it fit. I was going to do "Do You Realize" by the FL but decided that it would be anachronistic._

_Edit: Thanks to _quabaq _for pointing out that F&G have different last names._


	11. Reading Rainbow

_If you don't know what's going on, you probably didn't read the chapter before. It was posted while the server was down, so you might have missed the update in the deluge of emails. _

Wit of the Raven

Chapter 11

Harry was growing increasingly exasperated with his team. It wasn't completely the other members' faults, it was partially just differences in mentality and priorities. Besides, any interaction between him and Daphne was still awkward, even almost a week after their "duel". He wondered idly what it must have been like, growing up to be the kind of person whose most familiar dance is more of a seduction than a dance. After some thought, he decided that considering his past, it could have been preferable.

It was a sort of chilling thought, knowing that for a part of his life, he had led a worse life than being trained to kill people after seducing them into relaxation, although he took comfort in the knowledge that he was past that stage in his life. In fact, it seemed sort of distant, like it was from someone else's life. Harry reassured himself with the thought that it wasn't very pleasant anyway, and he was well rid of it, and thought no more of the other life.

The morning was chilly and fog-ridden, and Harry didn't feel like doing much of anything. For his mandatory "Hunter Class", he had signed up for Criminal Psychology, since, contrary to Neville's belief, he wasn't all that interested in being a hunter, as it would probably shorten his life expectancy. He figured that he could still learn a little bit about psychology, which might come in handy in any walk of life. He had been considering Healing as a career–he loved the class, mostly because the teacher had a few spectacularly funny moments, and because he was quite good at it. Of course, he knew that it was a little early to be considering career paths, but Snape had told him that it was never too early to collect marketable skills.

Speaking of Snape, the flying sessions had been going marvelously, and he'd been able to test out of the flying course. Harry still wasn't brilliant at it, but he knew enough that he was fairly comfortable going in excess of forty kilometers per hour. Recently, Snape had been explaining to him the way that a windstaff was put together, which was actually a fairly interesting process.

"There are trees that are ideal for windstaffs, and there are trees that are not. Consider the willow, and the way it moves in the wind," Snape had told him as they examined their staves in the middle of the field, as groups of exuberant children zoomed over them, chatting about the opposite sex and the test the period before.

Harry had closed his eyes, and imagined the long, heavily burdened branches of the willow, and the way that the leaves drooped, or didn't droop, and the long swaying motions as they simply flowed with the wind. He inhaled, exhaled, and nodded. "They would just go smoothly," he answered calmly.

Snape had nodded. "Willow is a perfect wood for a windstaff. Alternately, say, Oak, is the completely wrong disposition." He had explained the way that there were other specifications for the wood, like that it had to be infested with Bowtruckles, since there wasn't any better way of finding wood that had sufficient magical properties, unless it had a wood sprite in it, in which case it was better left alone. There, Harry had kept quiet.

Harry had finished his Criminal Psych reading, and his Experimental Herbology homework, which was a paragraph on an important experimental Herbologist and the advances in technique he or she had given the field, earlier that day, and he was planning on doing the rest of the homework with his team, his quartet, the group that he was immensely dissatisfied with.

With a sigh, he turned to the booklets that Dumbledore had given him and Granger. Speaking of Granger, he hadn't seen her since they had gotten in their argument after their collection of their "prizes." What on Earth had prompted Dumbledore to give them the useless things?

Harry considered whether or not to try the book again at that second. He had planned on shoving his reading time down to that night, so that he could go to sleep afterward, instead of walking around restlessly, but didn't really feel like wasting his time in it with this book again, or starting it early. Harry sighed at the lost time, but placed his hand on the page where it instructed him to again. This time, he was a mite surprised as within a blink, he was suddenly in a different room, and no longer seated on his soft bed, but on the hardwood floor, confronted by a stocky fifth or sixth year with a red and yellow tie, and long, black robes. He had short black hair, and a mostly nondescript, thin face, except for a spot of acne on his left cheek, and a mole by his left eye.

"Eh, they changed the style of dress _again_?" the boy asked, amused, tugging on his earlobe.

Harry scrambled back a few steps, before standing up. Within a few seconds, he had put two and two together, and yawned and cracked his knuckles. "You're the book, yes?" he asked politely, stretching out his slightly cramped neck.

The boy snorted, moving his roaming finger to his neck, which he scratched awkwardly. "Not exactly, but close enough," he said with a grin. "I'm technically the summer project of the bloke who had this face, back in the 1700's–dunno what year, he didn't bother to give me a clock at the time." He moved his fingers down to his chest, which he scratched with great abandon. Harry stared in question, and he sighed. "Thought it would be a laugh to constantly make me itchy all over, but it's really annoying. Changes location every twenty seconds, too."

"Ah," Harry said eloquently. "My apologies."

"Not your fault," the boy replied with a smile, extending his right hand, the one that wasn't itching incessantly. "You can call me Charms."

"'lo, Charms, I'm Harry," Harry replied easily, taking the proffered hand.

"Hello Harry," Charms said politely. "Now, what year are you in?" he wondered out loud.

"First year, just finished my first month," he informed Charms quickly.

"Christ," Charms swore. "At least the other girl was a third year–well, I suppose I'll be giving you a crash course in Charms theory, too. This is the summoning charm." Quickly, he drew his wand, and cast, "Accio!" while making small twitches with his fingers and waving it forward and to the left, before a quick tug back. "Here, I've stopped the spell. Take this bag of sand, and toss it in the air. It sticks to magic, and since this book isn't actually anywhere, we have an unlimited supply of it. Look."

With Charms practically still, Harry took the bag, and holding it by the bottom, shook it out into the open, where it floated in a ball. He cursed, and blew it in the direction of where Charms was pointing. The view was breathtaking. The sand clung to invisible strands of magic, making up a matrix, roughly a one meter by one meter square. It was like a cobweb, suspended in midair. "Wicked," Harry breathed.

"Go on, touch it," Charms urged. Hesitantly, Harry touched the matrix, and was surprised to feel absolutely nothing, except for the sand, which clung to his skin until he shook it off.

"That's really badass," Harry muttered, once again passing his hand through it.

Charms chuckled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Er," Harry stuttered, before collecting himself. "It's cool, groovy, in a masculine and generally aggressive way."

Charms retorted with a snicker, before he loosed the spell. Harry watched excitedly as the sand flowed into his pocket, and removed his wand. Once again, Charms stopped it, and Harry blew more sand onto it. The matrix had bent to accommodate his wand, and at Charms' instruction, he could feel the now solid matrix. "As soon as it bends, it becomes tangible, so I bent it slightly before I put it into your pocket. Come over, I'll show you what I did."

For the next hour, Charms explained the process of building the matrix using the right numbers, and exploiting different units of measure to use the right lengths regardless of what you were trying to enfold in the summoning charm. He also showed Harry ways of neatly folding the matrix, and methods for folding the matrix tighter, or not so tight, in order to be discrete, or not, with the summoning charm. "There are also ways of transporting fluids, but they're a little difficult, and you should probably ask your charms professor about them, maybe when you're a little older."

Harry had a little bit of time with a few of the wand movements, which were a little trickier than he was used to, although he had come across a few of them in some of his research for healing class. He supposed that it used a little of the same theory, and made a mental note to ask Snape about more theoretical readings.

After a couple of hours of time with Charms, Charms declared him ready for the real world. "You have a pretty decent control of the charm in here. However, have you noticed that you've been casting for hours without any fatigue?" Harry realized that he was right, and felt a headache coming on. He'd need to be more observant in the future, he decided. "That's because basically everything is infinite in this world, in the book, as it were. Back in your world, you'll probably have to scramble to grasp this much magic, let alone do it this easily. I doubt you'll be able to cast it more than four times in a row, considering how young you are."

Harry nodded, and blinked. In a second, Charms was right in front of him. "Surprise," he whispered, before flicking Harry's forehead back. With another blink, Harry was back in his world, his hand on the book's page. Flipping through the pages again, they were pretty helpful, just notes of review. With a glance at the time, Harry cursed, realizing that he had missed nearly all of lunch, and that the book wasn't at all as time efficient as using the OR was. He sighed disappointedly, before slinging the book on the bed and rushing out the door. After all, he knew that it was important to get three meals a day, despite not always getting them with the Dursleys. In fact, perhaps he knew it because of not always getting them with the Dursleys that he knew it, he considered.

As he ran down, students streamed up, chattering like shrill dolphins, waves and waves of them, apparently returning from lunch. With a sigh, he made to return to his room, figuring that lunch was already past, before remembering the advice of the portrait of Circe the Hogmother to take snacks in the kitchen. With a smirk, he ran past the hordes of people, and up a flight of stairs in Hufflepuff, and forced his way through more people, and across the hall, before coming to the still life.

Casually, he tickled the pear with his pinky, and the painting and a portion of the wall slid open, revealing multitudinous elves, and a few kids, who Harry thought he recognized from the Vikings meeting. His eye caught on one of them, and he asked with surprise, "Madame Chang?"

She gave a small laugh, and glanced at her laddermates. "What is this, three for five? I think Therapists F and G made a good choice."

"Siddown, Potter!" another commanded, conjuring a chair.

With a small smile, he sat down, not flicking an eyelash as a plate and silverware appeared in front of him. Against the aluminum table, the cutlery made bizarre shadows, creating neat shapes on the walls, much like the walls were walls of an aquarium and the shadows were strange kinds of fish. "Is this your gathering place?" he asked calmly, serving chips and salad.

"It's quieter than in the Great Hall, and you don't need to search through the tables to find your friends. It's kind of funny, but no one else has thought of going to the kitchens at dinnertime, instead of for questionably legit midnight snacks," the boy who had conjured the table answered. "By the way, my name is Corey Livar, I'm a member of The Plunderers, the Hufflepuff of the team. You're the Ravenclaw, right?"

Harry nodded, having tucked in already, as heknew it wasn't polite to talk while his mouth was full. When he was done chewing, he asked, "So, what kinds of pranks did you guys do for your initiations?"

The members grinned at each other, and waxed poetic about their "outstanding achievements in the field" as Harry ate quietly, and eventually, finished their meals and left, leaving him to finish his in silence and solitude, the elves bustling around noiselessly, giving him the uncomfortable feeling that he was trapped in a silent movie.

With a "thank you" to the elves, he was off, to thank the Hogmother for telling him where the kitchen was, and to generally pay her a visit. He _knew_ that it was important to be eternally polite.

It took Harry roughly half an hour to get to her portrait at the top of Ravenclaw, not including the time he took to actually find the portrait, and he got completely exhausted while doing it. He stopped at the 6th floor's bathroom to get some water, and made a mental note to get into better shape.

He was greeted with a warm smile and a joking admonition. "What did you get all worn from, Mr. Potter?" the Hogmother asked.

"Just walked up twenty flights of stairs," he panted, heavily.

She giggled, and Harry suppressed a glare. He was grateful to her, he reminded himself. "You should have taken the shortcut, Harry. Didn't anyone tell you about it? The one from any floor on Ravenclaw to any other floor?"

He sighed irritably as he sank to the floor, too aggravated and exhausted to stand any longer. "Damn," he muttered angrily. "Stupid, stupid–I should have remembered that bloody password, bloody flaming hell!"

Again, she giggled, but this time Harry didn't feel any anger. He figured that it was better to be relaxed, and besides, it was probably sort of funny from a third person's perspective.

He yawned, and stood up again, shakily, leaning against the wall. "Thanks for reminding me about that, Hogmother, and thank you for telling me about the kitchen–it came to great use today."

"Anytime, Mr. Potter," she replied with a smile. "Not much else to do around here."

Harry took out his wand, before thinking better of it. "I don't really feel like expending any magical energy right now," he told the Hogmother, "So I don't suppose that you know what time it is right now?"

She shook her head no. "Sorry, Mr. Potter."

He nodded with understanding, and drew his wand and checked the time. It was roughly an hour before he was supposed to meet with the rest of his team. He had the shortcut now, so he didn't need to hurry as much as before, but it would still take time to gather the necessary materials for his planned lecture.

He waved goodbye to the Hogmother, and enunciated the password. With a pop, the door to the elevator materialized out of the wall, and he zipped down to the bottom floor of R. Tower. From there, he walked down to the dungeons, where he knew Snape worked.

When he found him, he was bent over a bunch of papers. Harry could practically feel the aggravation oozing off of the papers. Where one of the boys had signed his name, it looked like he had instead made vertical and horizontal scratches, the nib of his quill gouging out sections of the paper.

"Professor," he interrupted with a smile.

Snape looked up, a look of mild irritation on his face, which quickly morphed into a smirk as he saw who it was. "Ah, my partner in crime, the little Mr. Potter," he breathed with amusement.

Harry felt vaguely like something was going over his head, but paid it no mind. "Could I borrow some crushed rat skin?"

"After your display with my . . . colleague," he replied, eyes already returning to his papers, "you could take anything. It's over there, third shelf down, well labeled," he informed Harry, giving a no-look point worthy of the Great One.

Harry walked over to where he pointed, and, standing tiptoe, found the skin and pulled it down. He piled several grams of it into a small beaker, and put an imperturbable cap on it, before pocketing it.

He thanked Snape, and made to leave, before Snape told him, "There's a knife that's designed for only taking a single drop of blood on the table, it'll be safer than trying to avoid a vessel on your body.

Harry started. "How did you know I was trying to make a cut closing potion?" he demanded, more than slightly surprised.

"It's the only exciting potion that has crushed rat skin. Unless you need to prepare a solution for melting off someone's foreskin?" he asked, lifting his head from his paper as Harry retrieved the knife.

Harry shook his head no, while eyeing the peculiarly shaped knife. "Looks sort of like a cross between scissors and a lighter," he commented.

"That's basically what it is," Snape told him brusquely, going onto his next paper. "Hold it to your skin, click the button, there's a slightly numbing sensation and the scissors remove exactly one drop of blood. At least, that's how it's advertised. A drop of blood is variable, but take it from me that it doesn't take too much. Even for a person your size, it shouldn't be a problem."

Harry glared at the top of Snape's head, before schooling his expression, feeling a headache coming on. He thanked Snape again, and made to leave.

As he was approaching the door, Snape once again called out to him. "And keep up on your Potions reading," he ordered. "Your little display of knowledge gave me the little extra push to climb to the top of Hogwarts' Potions hierarchy. If we keep on going like this, I'll be Minister of Magic in no time," he remarked, deadpan. Harry laughed, and finally left, to meet up with his team.

By the he got there, they had all already assembled. "You're late, Potter," Neville mocked with a smile, his arm on the table behind Daphne's back.

Harry smiled at Neville. "Sorry Neville," he said happily, not looking at Daphne, "I needed to get some supplies for what I have planned for today, it's actually pretty cool."

"Better than that stupid _Jak_ spell, yes, Potter?" Neville asked with a smirk.

Harry shot a look at Daphne, and cursed that he hadn't been looking at her earlier. This would have been a great gauge of how she was feeling at the time. She wasn't looking at him, and she seemed a little stiff, but he couldn't tell if she was that way previously for the life of him. He looked back at Hannah, who was defending the spell admirably.

"Well, it was really bloody hard, but it's a good taste of more advanced magic, right?" She stood, to make a playful shove at Harry. "Variable spells like _Jak_ and _Tor_ are all second level stuff at Hogwarts, at least third year outside of it, the nurse told me. _Jak _a little harder than _Tor_, since we're much more familiar with water than we are with fire, but it's good experience to be working a little harder than required in school."

Neville snorted. "Come off it," he moaned, "we're at bloody Hogwarts! We're already working way harder than required at school."

Harry ignored him, and set up his cauldron. "Take out your cauldrons, mates," he said excitedly, masking his analysis of Daphne's movements with a smile. It was really too bad that this felt more like hostile territory than a relaxed meeting of friends. "Change the film on the outside of the cauldron to two millimeters of Argent, base of regular water, make sure it's not heavy, or with low oxygen content. Actually, high oxygen content is best, to be honest."

Neville whispered something to Daphne, while the two of them got out their cauldrons, and Harry focused on her lips, to try to figure out what she said back if she whispered too. She did, and Harry noticed specifically the v shape, teeth raking lips, and the uncomfortable-looking shape that was either r or l. He suspected greatly that she had said "Silver", and mentally, he cursed Neville. Probably, he had asked what Argent was. They had already covered the periodic table in class, and the way that wizards had gradually switched from the previous list to the more simple periodic table and the muggle symbols. Hadn't he wondered why gold was Au, and lead was Pb of all things? Had he absolutely no intellectual curiosity?

Harry hid his aggravation in measuring out grams of crushed rat skin, telling the group, "Right, make it 250 milliliters of water, and dump this in after you bring it to a boil. The book recommends 380 Kelvin," he said, handing out the crushed rat skin. "Then set your timers for five minutes, at which point you'll put in point zero one kilograms of kelp." He bet that Granger would know, although he was unsure of why his thoughts had led him to her. "Then, start stirring clockwise, and don't stop for another two minutes."

Harry's was the first to boil, since he had started his slightly before the others, although he had some complications with dumping the crushed rat skin in, as it was sticking to his beaker, and Neville was the first to make it to the stage with the Kelp, and start stirring.

"Good job, Neville," he said, feeling, like he managed to hide his annoyance fairly well. "Now, after you finish stirring, take this," he ordered, holding up the tool that Snape had leant him, "put the tip next to your hand, over the cauldron, and click the button, before continuing to stir for another three minutes, counterclockwise this time."

Neville followed the orders, although there was a sort of frenzied time when they were all trying to get the bloodletting done as quickly as possible, in order not to mess up the delicate solution by boiling too much of the water away. Harry wasn't altogether too worried, because it was a pretty robust potion, but it was probably better to be closer to the prescription in the book that not.

A few minutes later, each of them had a fairly watery potion, with a green cloud floating in it. "Groovy," Neville commented. "What does it do?"

In explanation, Harry showed Neville the small cut that he had gotten on his right hand from giving his blood to the potion, and took a sip of the potion with his other hand. It had a salty taste, with a sort of uncomfortable texture–the rat skin hadn't fully dissolved, and he forced himself not to think of it. Before their eyes, the slit in Harry skin had closed, until it wasn't visible in the least.

"Wow," Hannah said, surprised, as the other three of them tried it as well.

Harry smiled. "Happy now?" he said with mock irritation, a smile on his face, to show them that he was just kidding. He wasn't, but he figured it would be better for the cohesion of the group if he kept up the pretense.

"Wicked, Harry, just wicked," Neville enthused as his cut disappeared. "What's the maximum it'll heal?"

"Nothing deep, and nothing much bigger than this. It's typically used for scrapes, paper cuts, or other kinds of small cuts, not contusions, although it has fallen out of use, despite the ease of creation because crushed rat skin isn't a common ingredient, and there are tastier versions that are mass-marketed," Harry lectured happily. He had been slightly unsure about whether or not they would be happy with a potion, since it wasn't as flashy as Neville typically liked his spells, although they seemed decently interested.

For the rest of the meeting, Daphne showed them a spell that Harry had already known, a variant on _Lumos_ that was used for inducing temporary blindness in opponents. Neville had a fairly interesting water spell that was used for gathering rain into a vessel, which was useful because there were several rituals and potions that required freshly gathered rain water. Unfortunately, it was purely theoretical, as none of them knew any spells to make it rain inside of the room. Hannah was about to show her spell, when Neville checked the time.

"We should probably go down for the challenge," he said, jumping off of his desk.

Hannah asked, "Isn't it History?" At Harry's nod, she waved her hand at the two of them. "I'm rubbish at History, you guys can go without me."

"Me too," Daphne begged off, giving a quick nod before fleeing the room.

Neville looked Harry in the eye. "You're staying, right, Harry?"

Harry nodded. "Let's go," he advised.

The two of them walked down to the Great Hall, and for the second time that day, Harry was impeded on the staircase by upperclassmen streaming up the tower. The two of them just barely got down in time to hear the teacher, one of the other first year history teachers, explaining the Challenge to the group.

"Today is what we call a standard identify and search. Nothing special, just find the portrait or statue of a famous person, and talk to him or her." With a flick of her wand, a book appeared in front of each of the contestants. "This is a school-owned book, so don't take it with you. We _will_ hunt you down," she remarked seriously. "It's made so that you can organize it's contents by characteristic, but not by name, so that you need to find the person in another book before you can search him or her up in this book."

"Goddammit," Neville muttered, getting up to leave. "I'm not going to waste my time with this."

"Wait. Neville, we have the find command that Hannah taught us, we can just use that to–"

"I already have plenty of amenities. I'd rather spend my time with Daphne. Peace, Harry." With a wave, he left, alongside quite a few others.

As the crowd thinned, he noticed Granger, her hair had grown noticeably longer than when they had first met. He _knew_ that he liked girls with hair longer than that.

"You're looking for the portrait of the Hogmother. She is on campus. Begin."

There was a frenzy of noise as teams chattered among themselves, and Harry just sat there, unable to move, he was so surprised. After a few moments, he shook his head, and stood up, realizing that he couldn't just sit still when he was surprised.

"Longbottom!" he yelled, running towards Gryffindor tower. He spotted Neville, by the door, and shouted his name again. Neville waved him off, disappearing down a corridor, and Harry stopped, cursing vehemently. This could have been a very easy seven or so points for Neville.

Harry turned around, and started walking towards Ravenclaw, before he noted that Granger was determinedly flipping through pages. He walked over to her, and tapped her on the shoulder. "I can show you where she is," he whispered in her ear.

She glanced up at him with distrust. "Yeah, right," she muttered.

"Look, the Gryffindor member of my team isn't here, so I have no problem with you getting the extra points for first in Gryffindor. I'll of course get first place, but this will land you at least a couple extra free ones," he explained. "I've already seen the Hogmother, and I know a shortcut."

She glanced at her book, back at Harry, and then slammed it shut. "Fine," she told him, "but if you're lying I will rend you from the base of your skull to your anus. Do you understand?"

Harry smirked. "Good to see that you haven't lost your edge, Granger," he said, motioning for her to come with him.

The two of them walked over to Ravenclaw Tower, where Harry knew that he could use his shortcut. As they reached the corridor that marked the beginning of R. Tower, Harry glanced over his shoulder, and noted two people of an unknown house trailing them.

"Granger," he began softly, "There are two people following us, both girls. Can you immobilize them?"

She was silent for a few minutes, before answering in a similar low voice, "Yes, but why?"

"After I reveal the shortcut, anyone can use it, and I don't trust them not to attack us. I'm going to go to the shortcut, and then I need you to prevent them from following us. Do you know any binding kinds of charms?" he asked calmly, as they walked.

"Yes, the standard petrifying," she replied with a small bit of a boasting tone.

Harry grinned, and ordered, "Do it, now!"

"Now?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes, goddamnit!" he said, irritably, as the two following stopped in their tracks, confused.

Hermione drew her wand, and as the two of them fumbled for theirs, she cast, "_Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus!_"

She only managed to hit one of them, but after seeing what the spell did to her friend, the other ran in fright, towing her friend behind her.

"Jesus, is that allowed in the rules?" she asked, for the first time Harry had seen her slightly hesitant.

"They didn't say we couldn't," alleged Harry. "Come on, we're there." To the wall, he whispered, "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late," and the wall opened up, to reveal a small broom cupboard-like space.

Harry walked in, and gestured for Hermione to follow. "Oh no you don't," she said nastily, back to her old self. "That isn't a secret passage, it doesn't go anywhere. You were just trying to get me alone with you so that you could molest me, or rape me!" she accused.

Harry grinned, and rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to rape you, Granger, we're eleven years old, and–"

"I'm twelve," she muttered back, slightly petulantly.

"We're preteens," he amended, "and neither of us has gone through puberty yet, so–"

"I've already had my first period," she interrupted again.

"If I wanted to rape someone, I wouldn't touch you because you're completely flat."

"I'm not bloody flat!" she defended herself.

"Yes you are, Granger," he admonished softly, gesturing for her to come in. "You're flat as a washboard."

She hunched down, and squeezed into the room without complaint, sneaking glances that were a cross between surprised and irritated at Harry. He couldn't bring himself to coolly analyze their meaning, and he pushed the button to the ninth floor moodily. He felt the sensation that signaled that they were rising, and heard the whirring of the air running past them, and licked his lips, feeling his wand in his pocket as they slowed down again, his ears feeling funny. He swallowed, and walked out of the door, right before Granger did. As she left the room, she straightened up and stretched her arms high above her head, and in a fluid motion, Harry drew his wand, and petrified her. She was looking slightly stone-like, but was warm to the touch, so Harry walked over to the Hogmother, and greeted her.

"You should've asked me for the time now, Harry!" she said excitedly. "Good job on finding me so fast, I don't know if anyone has finished an identify and find so quickly on me ever before!"

"Really," Harry asked, impressed despite himself, and feeling his anger fading. It felt good that his work was paying off.

"Really," she assured him with a giggle. "Although I've only had two other find and identify's, that I can remember, so perhaps others have had quicker ones. Good work all the same, Mr. Potter."

He smiled, and walked back over to Granger, where she stood, hands stretched in the air. He stood in front of her, poised to end the spell, before it occurred to him that it might be easier to do it wandlessly, and less powerfully. Considering that he didn't want Granger to know he could do wandless magic, and smiling slightly at the irony, that his simpler version of performing spells was the one he needed to hide, he decided to walk behind her, and ended the spell quietly. "_Finite Incantatem,_" he cast, feeling a slight drain as the blood in his fingers emptied their magic. There was a slight tingling in his fingers that traveled up his wrist as he could almost feel the new magic struggling against the magic his wand had wrought, and he licked his lips, concentrating on keeping his fingers in place, until Granger moved again.

"Sorry about that," he told her, "I've had a long day, and I didn't want to make it any longer."

Without turning around, she swung her arm wildly behind her, at around the height of her head, completely missing Harry. With a growl, she turned around, moving her hand to pull out her wand, until she eyed the wand lolling in his left hand. After a few seconds of careful deliberation, she slowly met his eyes again. "Next time you have a bad day," she said, looking serious. "Don't use that spell on me. I had an itch, and it was extremely fucking uncomfortable. If you do, I will fucking rend you from the base of your skull to your anus."

"We'll see," Harry remarked, pursing his lips, before turning to the wall, and whispering, "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late," again. "See you, Granger," he said, walking into the elevator. He suspected greatly that he would not have a happy time studying tonight.

* * *

A/N: This is shorter than usual because I was initially going to have this be the first half of a chapter, but decided that I would cut it in half, and half two slightly shorter than usual chapters. At least, this one is shorter than usual. So . . . for people who I told the title of the this chapter would be _X_, and discovered it wasn't, it should be the title of the following chapter. Speaking of the following chapter . . . I actually wrote this chapter in probably a little under seven hours (not exactly non-stop work), not including revisions. I recently discovered that if I actually write, I can . . . well, write. Hopefully, the next one will be out sooner.

Thanks go out to . . . Traveller, Taure, OdinMage, IP82 (anyone else notice he has a dirty little finger in every dirty little pie in London?), and CharmsCharles.


	12. Conflict Resolution

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Twelve

Not for the first time, Harry noticed that he was experiencing the same feeling that a new seamster experiences as he fails to properly thread a needle for the twentieth time; Harry was exasperated. Despite training himself to exhaustion every night, Harry was certain that he hadn't hit his threshold, and that his rate of improvement in terms of being able to cast more wanded spells was glacial.

On the other hand, Harry had gotten his optomancy far enough along that he was decent enough at forcing the melanin out of his eyes that it barely hurt anymore. Besides, after collapsing from hours of exhaustive optomancy, he had discovered that it went away by itself after a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, he hadn't figured that out until he was mostly proficient in forcing it out the hard way, but regardless, he rarely practiced it anymore. He was very quick at altering the lens in his eye, too, so that all he really had to deal with was the disorientation and refocusing before he could reap the benefits. Reading lips was still very hard, since many syllables look fairly similar, but if he really thought about it, he could grasp short unheard words. He wasn't so hot at changing how well he could see in the dark, but he was working on it. One of the benefits that Snape had mentioned was that when a person, or even a plant or an animal tried to surprise him by releasing a great deal of light, he'd be able to guard against that problem easily once he was proficient at it. Consequently, Harry had redoubled his efforts, although he didn't feel that his increase in work was really cost effective; he had improved a little quicker, but not that much.

Despite his triumphs in the rare discipline, Harry constantly wished that he didn't have to manage his spell usage, so that he didn't find himself stuck in a practical lesson, nearly out of juice. Knowing that his problems stemmed from the fact that the wand was actually a disguised staff, he returned to the book, reading more closely on how wands and staffs differed. The stories, which were mostly history, and the facts, which were mostly dry and not written in an interesting way, alternated chapters, and not for the first time, Harry wished that they could have integrated the stories into the information chapters, as some of the other authors that Harry had read had done. From what he could tell, the main difference was in the core. Where the typical wand had a bit of a magical creature in it, and several cores could be taken from the same magical creature, the core of the staff was inhabited by the souls of magical creatures, tied to this plane until the destruction of the staff by the staff's maker. Because souls could not be split, and because the soul was closely interlinked with how blood holds magic, staffs were much stronger, but retained personalities and refused to work below a certain level.

Harry had nearly given up hope, when a paragraph caught his eye.

. . . _It is not completely known how, or why staffs have a much larger minimum magic usage. It could be intractability on the part of the staff, except that staffs have been known to have very good working relationships with their wielders, and still they couldn't perform simple tasks with them. However, some wizards have claimed that the lower bound had become better once they had become better acquainted with the inhabitants of their staffs' cores._ . .

Realizing that this could be the key to making his life significantly easier, Harry smiled, flipping through the book to the index, and then back to the section on contacting the inhabitants of staffs. It didn't seem too difficult, considering that he already knew how to make a rough circle. Most of the instructions seemed to be surrounding that, since the circle had to be destroyed to stop the communication with the staff; obviously, this was not cost effective for the majority of people reading the book, who probably did not tend to be millionaires, willing and able to shell out the money for a new circle just to talk to a staff. Other than supplying the rough circle with a separate power supply, which Harry still didn't understand, despite Hannah's very good explanations in terms of theory, Harry felt fairly comfortable doing it without using the book at all, even though he hadn't tried it out yet.

A couple of weeks ago, the last remaining member of Harry's dormitory had saved up the requisite number of points, and moved out of the dorm, leaving the entire room to Harry. He had briefly considered moving all of the beds to one side, to give himself more room, but he didn't strictly need it, and it would cause trouble for whoever had to put them back next year. Now though, he moved a couple of the beds to make room for his circle. The beds were surprisingly heavy, and exhausted from the effort, he collapsed in one of them, panting softly.

He had another irritation than not being able to cast easily though, he remembered, and Daphne was her name. She hadn't discussed their altercation with him, but her relationship with Neville had become more complicated. Sometimes she flirted with him in an urbane manner, and sometimes she ignored him. Neville had confided in Harry that he was getting fed up, and privately, Harry was glad. He figured that the cessation of their romantic relationship would improve interpersonal relationships with the other group members. Hannah didn't really seem to care, since she was playing one OR or another nearly constantly, but it would be better for the group as a whole if Neville wasn't in the perfect position to become peeved enough to kill someone if Daphne's secret came out.

Harry also suspected that Daphne could spend more time looking up spells that the rest of them could use if she wasn't toying with Neville's emotions all the time. Neville might actually crack open a book that wasn't part of the required reading, and Harry might actually begin to get something out of the group other than how to write rough circles. Which was obviously useful, but not the only topic he was interested in.

Feeling physically refreshed but emotionally a little unsure after his brief rest, Harry decided to seize the day and get to work. Pulling a piece of chalk out of his pocket, he scrawled the runes needed for a quick and easy circle on the ground. There wasn't any protection, but he wasn't planning on opening it up to any other circles, anyway.

The basic idea was not that hard, although the implementation was fairly tedious. You needed a few runes to specify things like language, interface type and connection, which in this case would be a direct one to an object, as well as a very complex rune with many twists and turns that went in the middle of the circle. It was a substitute for an abbreviated version of The Code, but it was still a pain to draw. There was a rune that the book supplied for letting the souls interact with the circle, and several runes that Harry made into a separate circle for an auxiliary power source. A more experienced haxxor probably could have layered the power source more elegantly on top of the actual code, but Harry decided against it, choosing function over form; it was too time consuming to redo just because he wanted to take a chance.

Once he was done, Harry stood up, and looked over his work. It wasn't a masterpiece, and some of the distances between runes were a little awkward as he had underestimated the distance he would need to fill, but it was passable. He gave a small smile, before kneeling down and pushing his forefinger and middle finger onto a rune that was simply two circles next to each other. Carefully placing each finger inside of the chalk, he pushed a little magic through the blood pumping through his fingers, and into the rune. It glowed brightly, before the glow subsided, and spread evenly throughout the power supply. He repeated the action for the main circle, and a small light appeared at the bottom of the circle, several inches below the main rune.

Tentatively, reaching towards the light like a father his newborn, unsure that he is really there, he touched it gently. Instantly, the interface sprang up; a little ugly, without the clean textures and edges of Harry's standard circle, but definitely serviceable. Harry glanced at the two gauges indicating power. The auxiliary one wasn't straining at all yet, and the main one could stick around for at least another forty-five minutes before it needed recharging.

More confident in his work now, Harry selected the main interface, and was only slightly surprised when two pictures, one of a Pixie and one of a Dragon, appeared in front of him. The pictures seemed like the moving portraits he seen before. The two of them were identical sizes, although he knew that the Dragon was probably thousands of times larger than the Pixie. He had seen something similar when Hannah communicated with her parents, although she had used a fairly advanced graphics code that let them appear practically three-dimensional, and he wondered if he couldn't write one of those himself. At the bottom of both pictures, almost like closed captioning, there was a friendly greeting from the Pixie, and a bizarre mix of alphanumeric gibberish and arcane symbols from the Dragon.

"Hello, Harry!" the Pixie printed, the words appearing with haste, as if to match the visible excitement of the Pixie floating about the picture frame.

"Hello . . . I'm sorry, I'm not sure of your name," he told her slowly.

"I'm Nellodee," she answered, replacing the previous words that had been slowly fading away. The "I'm" faded away like the others had done before, the "Nellodee" stayed in the foreground, turning from black and transitioning through an array of colors before settling on red, and erupting with sparkles.

"Hi Nellodee," Harry uttered awkwardly. He had the distinct feeling that he was going insane, and suppressed uncomfortable laughter before asking, "Do you speak English?"

She shook her head no. "I have a translating charm going. I leeched a tiny amount of magic from you and have been maintaining it like that." As she continued, she would alter the appearance of her words, in ways including but not limited to underscoring, moving about, italicizing, and changing the color of her words. It was more than a little distracting, although after a while, Harry got used to it.

Harry nodded in understanding. "But you can only maintain one at a time?" he queried, wondering why the Dragon couldn't do the same.

Nellodee nodded cheerfully, with a high-spirited, "Yes!" appearing at the bottom of her screen. After a moment though, the word faded, and she added, "Well, I can do both of us at once, but focusing on two drains the magic much more quickly. Barely worth it, really."

"So why can't the Dragon do it?" Harry inquired.

"What are they teaching you at this school?" the Pixie tittered. "Dragons," here the Pixie included a fairly intricate design, a combination of warring fire and ice, alternating by the letter, "have internal magic that lets them breathe fire or ice, fly, and protects them against most magics, but they cannot cast magic spells. Alternately, we Pixies are built like birds. Even stripped of our magic, we could still flitter about. Consequently, we can cast magic, and more efficiently than most of you, at that."

"And you hold no intention of conquering the world?" Harry asked in jest, only barely stifling a laugh.

"Humans are the heaviest hitting of the spellcasters in the world," the Pixie replied, the decoration on the words becoming less and less artful, and more and more obviously haphazard. "We think it's because of the existence of muggles. Why force such a large percentage of our population to lose their magic in exchange for us to become more powerful? It's barely worth it at all," she finished, her words rushing together at the end. Slowing down, she added, "Also, we are pacifists at heart, us Pixies." The last word she made do a little dance, before a final flourish in which the letters dissociated so that their branches turned into individual Pixies themselves, doing a quick dance before flying off the screen.

"That was pretty good," Harry complimented with a smile.

The Pixie knelt in mid-air in some variant on a curtsy. "Thank you, I try," she demurred.

"So can you help me with my staff problems? The minimum magic required to cast a spell has been killing me." Harry questioned with a slightly pleading tone.

The Pixie seemed to still, and the Dragon, which had hitherto been motionless, roared into action and let a streak of flame roll across its screen. The Pixie, looking over at it in consternation, shook its head. "I handle mostly custodial duties, such as keeping the staff clean. As the superior in internal magic, and it is the internal magic of the staff that you use, Dragon is far better suited to helping you out with that."

"Could you please translate for me?" Harry asked.

The Pixie seemed to hesitate, before flying into the air, and nodding once. In an instant, the words that had just before been English were turned into gibberish, and the Dragon's symbols and pictures became words in a black font, large and ornate like a newspaper headline, serifs large and tittles exact. "Harry Potter: Wizard," the window at the bottom of the Dragon's screen read.

Repositioning himself slightly to face the Dragon, Harry nodded. "That's me. And who are you?"

"Dragon," was the answer. The black seemed to blacken, if at all possible, on the word. Harry noted that instead of fading into the background, the Dragon seemed to have allocated itself a set amount of space on the screen, and the lines of text simply shifted the previous ones up one, and replaced the one before. It gave a funny effect, one combining formality, punctuality, and harshness.

"Hold on, your name's Dragon?" Harry asked, incredulous. He was slightly unnerved by Dragon's mannerisms, but this was a little too bizarre to not follow his initial instincts on.

The text shifted again, and Dragon informed him, "Sounds like your word for my race. But to us, Dragon means aggression." The font, majestic and unchanging, was a strong departure from the Pixie's expressive one.

Running parallel to Dragon's script was a steady stream of nonsense words from Nellodee, changing color from blue to green, and back again. Occasionally, the words would form images that would disappear as quickly as they had appeared. Their frenzied pace counteracted the relaxing effect of their sans-serif font. He chose to ignore it, and continued speaking to the Dragon.

"What does it sound like? The language of Dragon, that is," he asked, biting his lip.

"The language of aggression . . ." Dragon paused, and shifted down a line. Harry could almost hear the hard return on the typewriter, loud and screeching. "It's an amalgam of noises. What is the sound of your language?" Dragon asked, for the first time adding the flavor of italics to his words. It was difficult to discern his exact tone of voice, but Harry gauged it to be cool.

"Er, okay," Harry said, feeling wary of offending his magical focus, as well as still more than a bit interested by the font and manner of speaking. If Dragon got angry at him, who knew what would happen the next time he tried to perform a blasting curse. It could come out the wrong end of his staff if he wasn't careful. "So how did you get the name Dragon?"

"I picked it."

Harry was slightly taken aback. "So what did you go by before you could pick your name? Or do you hatch fully knowledgeable?"

Dragon wrote, at the same pace, same font, "I used my real name, wand-waver."

Slowly, Harry realized why he was so unnerved and why he was an inch away from driving a stake into his head in frustration. Over the past couple of weeks, he had been concentrating more and more on reading body language, the poor man's polygraph. That made this a nightmare. He was going in completely blind, not knowing who Dragon had been before he'd become an essential part of Harry's staff, and he couldn't even guess what Dragon was feeling, since he wasn't so much as twitching on his screen. At least the Pixie had emulated many standard human body positions–this was simply impossible. "And it's standard procedure to name yourself, for Dragons."

"Yes," Dragon answered tersely.

"Would you please tell me your initial name?" Harry asked with interest, trying to hide his mounting annoyance.

"No," Dragon shot back. Harry resisted the urge to curse wildly, until a few seconds later, Dragon slowly wrote out, "We could . . . make a deal."

Eager, but not wanting to come off as too eager, Harry lifted an eyebrow, since he was fairly certain that Dragon could see him. It was better to be safe than sorry, and he didn't want to seem insincere. The Pixie's words seemed to become the font of an angry hiss, directed at the dragon, whose words came as they always had, inexorably, although he had a feeling that they had become blacker again.

"We have been listening to your . . . conversations," the Dragon drawled, its words coming lethargically. Whether that was the dragon or the translator objecting was debatable. "The Potter family fought. I fought. You will fight."

Harry pursed his lips. "Out of the question," he said definitely. "First of all, the Pixie doesn't seem to be all that thrilled about the idea . . ."

"To rights!" the Pixie interrupted, briefly scattering the Dragon's words, the words flying away quickly.

"And second of all, I don't want to be hindered by injury," he added with an air of finality. "Think of another request."

"You won't be injured," the Dragon cajoled calmly, "if you do it right. Trust me," he ordered. "It'll be quick. He shields–you petrify–it rips through his shield–he needs medical attention."

The words 'medical attention" had a sharper tint, almost as if the black had reached saturation point and the only way to get the point across was to make the background lighter at this point.

"Not going to happen," Harry informed Dragon coolly, making to shut down the circle, and reaching for his staff. These talks were obviously going nowhere.

"The Pixie" Dragon started, his words suddenly italicized, "translates the magic. I make it efficient. You'd be surprised by how much I can do."

Harry sighed, and pulled back his hand. In his mind's eye, he could easily see himself, tiny, in a meadow, in front of a gigantic Dragon, curled up so as not to appear as large as he truly was, keeping the big guns for later. Lack of efficiency was a puff of flame at worst, which could be staved off with little or no difficulty, with wandless magic. The much greater threat was a spell being interpreted correctly by the faerie, and then wrought completely out of control by the Dragon. The flame charm that burned off his face would probably be equivalent to the Dragon stretching out and backhanding him.

Harry sighed again. If he was obviously in danger from fighting, Dragon would probably let him stop doing it, and it could be fit into his schedule, by switching out of Criminal Psychology, still fulfilling his father's request, probably becoming even closer to the spirit of his request. And did he really want to be on his staff's bad side? He allowed himself a small smirk. The joys of turning an issue into a boon.

"Alright, I'll switch into it," he agreed, with a smile on his face and eagerness in his words, quite contrary to his prior opinions.

The Pixie gave a small, frantic twittering, and on Dragon's board, there was simply an animation of a Dragon doing a flip in midair, the first time it had moved the entire time. Harry was filled with a sense of great foreboding, wondering if he should already regret his decision.

The Office for Defense was Spartan. There was a filing cabinet, a desk with a couple of papers strewn over a Circle, and a wastepaper basket. The man sitting behind the desk was seated in a stiff wooden chair with a high, flat back. His open robe showed beneath it a button-down white shirt and slacks, and his only extravagance was his long black dreadlocks, tied into a ponytail behind him. He ran his hand through them as Harry came into the room. He glanced up for a second before returning to his work.

Harry was a little intimidated. "Excuse me sir, are you Professor Shacklebolt?"

"Yes, I am," he said without glancing up.

"Um, do you know how I can switch into a dueling class?" Harry asked, a little put off by the uneven cadence of the conversation. Professor Shacklebolt seemed completely unwilling to play along.

Now the professor stopped working, and looked Harry in the eye. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"

Harry began to feel a funny combination of a headache coming on combined with a sort of respect for her–he knew for certain that _she_ respected him, at least. "I'm sorry sir, I'm Harry Potter, and I'm a first year."

"Better. Now start again."

"Hello Professor Shacklebolt, how are you doing today?" Harry asked in a warm voice.

"Hello Mr. Potter, I am doing very well," Shacklebolt answered. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Satisfied that he could go on to the main order of business, he explained, "My father asked that I take a defense class, and although I have been taking and enjoying Criminal Psychology, I feel like my time could be more usefully spent at my age in taking a dueling class."

Shacklebolt nodded in understanding. "Dueling opens up more classes in the future, while Criminal Psychology is only a prerequisite for an OWL. It would widen your ability to choose different, arguably more interesting classes next year. However, first years tend not to take this class. Do you know why?"

Harry shook his head. This was new information, and silently he made a note to thank the Dragon. He hadn't been thinking ahead adequately–this would behoove him.

"What would you guess is the reason?" he asked.

Harry thought. Criminal Psychology was not an easy class, and was challenging for even Harry to understand. Nearly all of the first and even second years in his class had dropped out, and Harry had really only survived by reading ahead in the book. "Not to be presumptuous, but given that there are so many more advanced forms of the class, since if I recall, Dueling is the first in a long line of classes that have successive prerequisites, I would be surprised if the difficulty was in the theory," he said, thinking out loud.

"The theory is very simple, you are correct," Shacklebolt said, a neutral expression on his face.

"Then the problem must be with the practical aspect," Harry decided. Privately, he doubted that it would be much of a problem, given that his problems were with poor volume of spells, and not with actually casting them, as far as he could see.

"Yes," Shacklebolt said, a small smile appearing on his face. "First years that have not passed their first threshold frequently have problems casting the requisite spells, and the weeding-out period for first years has already passed. We usually teach the hardest spell of the year in the first few classes, so that we don't have to flat-out reject first years. Besides, some first years can handle it, just not most."

Harry nodded, barely containing his eagerness. The headache was slightly compounded as he considered his opportunity to show off, but he assuaged it by reminding himself that he could only take the class if he showed off at least a little. "Do you have a way in which you can quickly test me to see if I can physically handle the class?"

Shacklebolt asked, "What hexes do you know?"

Harry thought for a second, before listing, "A petrifying curse, a stillness hex, a disarming charm, and Jak."

"Is the petrifying charm Petrificus Totalus?" he asked with interest.

"Yes," Harry said, unsure of whether or not the interest was a good sign or not. Probably a good sign.

"I'm going to cast that spell on you, and you are going to cast this shield and reflect it back at me."

"Alright," Harry said, readying his staff.

"The spell is _Laerad_. Watch." He drew his wand, and deliberately pushed his wand forward, before pointed down with it, surprising Harry. This wasn't one of the shield wand-motions that he recognized at all–this was one of the more common herbology spell wand-motions. The powerful wizard said, almost lovingly, "_Laerad_," and instantly, before his eyes, the wand sprouted branches and created a tight, cohesive shield of branches. "When a spell hits it, it turns into a ball of condensed magic, which is trying to drill through the shield. If you push back, though, it will go back to where it came from." With a shake, the spell was dispelled, and he put down his wand again, indicating that Harry should go.

Harry thought for a second. The Potters were notably good at Herbology, and their magical bloodline ran through Herbology. He would do fine. Harry nodded, and prepared himself, considering the steps that he now knew by heart for casting the spell. He didn't have a good sacrifice to help the spell, except for maybe the pebble stuck in his shoe, and he knew close enough how to pronounce the spell. He could practically feel the magic running through his blood, and he tried to remember the feeling of pushing magic into something else, pushing his magic from his blood into the wand, causing the small head of a pixie to appear, with a slightly worried look on her face. Harry opted not to worry too much, and he used the wand motion that Snape had taught him for Herbology spells, the one that simulated planting seeds.

"Hurry up," said Shacklebolt, who had lost his smile long ago. "I don't have all day."

Harry nodded, and thinking of growing and protecting, how the mighty boughs of a tree would protect the microcosm that lived beneath it, the feel of a broad trunk under his fingers, the shade of its leaves preventing Dudley from catching him, the immutability of a tree, the roots it dug deep beneath, and the way that if a few trees grew together, they would twist and turn about each other, weakening and strengthening each other in turns, turning together into a regular behemoth of a tree. "_Laerad,_" he enunciated, pulling up his hand.

As soon as he had loosed the spell, he knew something was wrong. As he continued to push the magic through his fingers, the dragon that Ollivander hadn't been able to see roared out of the wand once again, bellowing silently, but the spell didn't cast. Harry took a quick look at Shacklebolt, who was staring hard at his wand, and Harry returned his attention to the wand himself. After a second, although it didn't move, Harry could feel the strange sensation of the innards of the wand almost buckling under the stress, and although it didn't change in weight, it appeared as if he was holding a tree in all of its green finery, and not a tiny little stick. He couldn't see Shacklebolt through the leaves, although he could make out his laugh.

"Get ready, Mr. Potter!" the professor ordered, before hissing in a monotone, "_Petrificus Totalus_." Harry felt as if something was pressing on the tip of his wand, and shoved back a little. The pressure stopped, and Harry dispelled the shield.

Shacklebolt's skin had taken on a grey veneer, and Harry's heart leapt up in his chest, even as he began to feel slightly fatigued from all of the magic that Dragon had taken from him. The feeling quickly disappeared, and after a couple more seconds, Shacklebolt shook off the spell before Harry could even cast Finite.

"That was a good spell, Harry," Shacklebolt commended, dusting something off of one of his cuffs. "It would be good for a fourth year, but a fourth year wouldn't have required so much time to cast it," he reprimanded. "Still, more than enough to be able to survive Dueling class. I helped design the curriculum, you'll fit in very nicely into the next class, which is just theory, and you'll have two weeks to work on these spells." Shacklebolt sat back down, still stretching his fingers. He pulled a piece of looseleaf paper from one of his filing cabinets, and wrote six spells down in neat handwriting, before handing it to Harry. "May I see your schedule, please?"

Harry pulled his schedule out, and Shacklebolt tapped it a few times, before smirking and drawing a diagonal with his finger over what had previously been Harry's Criminal Psychology class. "You'll be exciting for this teacher," Shacklebolt said.

Harry was still a little dumbfounded that Shacklebolt could move. Taking the schedule back, he asked, "Er, sir, how did you get rid of the hex?"

The professor smiled broadly. "The Shacklebolts are beloved of Ares, just like the Potters, and Ares doesn't mind when you simply wish to be able to extend your battles. This kind of immunity isn't that difficult to obtain, if you're one of us and you have the patience and knowledge. The only difficulty is really in the extent to which I can fight off spells," he said. He started poring over his work once more. "Is that all?" he ordered.

Harry left.

At Harry's next flying lesson with Snape he brought up dueling lessons. He hadn't had any trouble with the actual casting of the spells, but he had a feeling that it would be trouble if he tried to cast them repetitively, since regardless of the spell, he could still only cast a few using his staff. He had experimented a little with his Windstaff, which had given much weaker, but more standard results. The spectacular things he did with his staff were interesting, but not very useful, and generally extremely taxing.

"Remember my problem with putting too much power into spells?" Harry asked.

"Of course," Snape replied, doing a leisurely flip in the air. "Try that, Harry. Wrench your body about, and the Windstaff will follow. As long as you don't accelerate at all, you'll maintain the direction you're going in."

Trying the maneuver, Harry had some trouble not accelerating as he switched directions, and Snape expertly kept around him, yelling out ways to correct his problems. "Do you have any, ah, shit, wrong way, any ideas on what I can do to solve my problem?"

"No, ask your magic teacher. Do you have Professor Kylix? That was pretty good, Harry. Now just try to do it a little slower."

"Like–oh, Merlin–like this?" At Snape's nod, he tried it again, and said, "No, I have Professor Nectarus. Oh, bugger."

"Let's head back towards the castle, we're getting dangerously close to the F. Forest. Nectarus is rather intelligent, and I've heard good things about his teaching. When is your next class with him?"

"November," Harry said, decelerating before trying the move again, but only half-way. It wasn't perfect, but he quickly readjusted so that he was going towards the castle. Snape didn't stop or decelerate, but instead turned around in midair, and accelerated towards the castle, the other direction. "Since I figured out his trick, and you already assigned me the EME homework, I don't have to go to class until after Hallowe'en. Thanks for the help in theory by the way; I can much more consistently get spells on the first try than most of my peers, excluding McAndrews . . . ah! There we go," he said.

"Good one Mr. Potter," Snape congratulated. "Don't feel too bad about McAndrews' superiority. He has been trained in spell theory since he could walk, probably. Both of his parents are noted spell theorists." He gave Harry a sharp look, and finished, "Besides, it's unbecoming to be envious."

After a few more tries, Harry mostly had the turn down, and they moved on to the trick that Snape had shown Harry, with accelerating in the opposite direction instead of decelerating. It was a much faster way to do it, but it made coming to a full stop fairly difficult, and if airspace was full, one could run into another flier. A thought hit Harry. "I probably shouldn't tell Professor Nectarus about my inability to cast weak spells, and my facility in casting strong ones."

Snape smiled. "Hard to conceal, no?"

"If I loop a spell with _Tor_ or _Jak_, I can usually diffuse the efficacy. Keeps up the facade of normality."

"Clever," Snape said. "Hmm, do you have time to break in a weapon? An oak cudgel might work out nicely as a wand substitute, if it's just for dueling class."

A wand substitute would be useful, but Harry knew that watching from the sidelines wasn't exactly what Dragon had had in mind. "I don't really have the time to break in a wand substitute," Harry demurred, before flipping about and using the accelerating trick to stop. He overshot nil velocity a little, and decelerated down to zero from a relatively slow pace.

"Good. That's enough, we're going back to Hogwarts," Snape said, setting the pace towards the castle. Harry kept up, but didn't bother trying to talk to the professor until they touched down again.

Once they were back down, Snape responded to his question, "I think the Potters have at least one already broken-in wand-substitutes solely for battle. You can check Gringotts."

"Yes," Harry said. "But if they don't, any other ideas?"

Snape shrugged. "Get the other guy on the first hit," he advised sagely. As they put their Windstaffs away, he asked, "How are you with your optomancy?"

"Eye-fucking?" Harry asked. Snape shot him a withering look, and Harry smiled disarmingly. "It's going well, I've pretty much figured out how to purge my eyes of excess melanin when I'm done. Dark and light adaptation is a little tricky, but I'll have figured it out by next week."

Snape nodded, and said, "Quicken the time-table and we'll do a ritual that lets you see magic on the day after Halloween if you've figured it out."

"Whoa," Harry said, deftly utilizing his expansive vocabulary.

"'Whoa' indeed," Snape said.

Harry closed the door to the storage room, and asked, "What do I need to do to prepare?"

"Nothing, really. Don't do too much work on your eyes on November first, and I can brew the potion for you."

"What do you want in exchange?" Harry asked, barely managing to contain his delight.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "That was blunt." Harry instantly regretted his phrasing, as he felt a sharp stab of pain, perhaps the onset of a migraine. "Come, I'll get you a few potions books to read. Johnson took on a third year protégé, and it would benefit both of us to one-up her. Here, I know a shortcut to my office, we'll cut across the pitch."

"Who is Johnson?" Harry asked as they walked around the bleachers. He had seen the pitch before, in an exhibition between the Greeks and the Romans, but hadn't walked on it. The grass was neatly trimmed, and uniformly green.

"Faculty advisor for the Americans, also the woman who you humiliated with your first-year potions knowledge."

"I prefer to think of it as supporting you, Professor, rather than damaging someone else's reputation," Harry said, carefully choosing his words. His migraine miraculously disappeared.

"Think of it however you wish," Snape said. "Regardless, I won, and she's turning this third year into a potions mistress to get me back."

"Do these things happen frequently in the Potions department?" Harry asked, sidestepping some mulch.

"The one-upmanship?" Snape asked. At Harry nod, he nodded as well. "It's actually better in Potions than in Charms though, since Charms have such quick results. Herbology has a pretty thriving competition system, but since everything in Herbology is long-term, it's more subtle. Haven't you been scouted out as a tool for an Herbology professor yet?"

Harry shook his head. "Not that I'm aware," he said, considering his interactions with Sprout in the past.

"Peculiar," Snape said.

"So why the constant competition? It's there with the students, it's there with the professors, apparently, is there some kind of competition between heads of house?"

Snape shook his head. "No, but there is one between headmasters. We spend a good amount of time at Hogwarts, and we'd go insane without something to do in our spare time. Since it's institutionalized, and we basically get pay-raises and promotions based on our success at it, we keep the competition going and have incentive to be the best possible teachers. If we have the best students, we get the best perks, the best salaries. The only real downside is that it dissuades people who might be great teachers, but dislike competition, from teaching at Hogwarts. Come, this door leads to my quarters." Snape pushed a slightly protruding stone, and it slid in with a moan, before it disappeared, alongside a good portion of the wall, revealing a long corridor.

"So are you using me to help position yourself in this competition?" Harry asked, not really offended. Given that Snape had helped him out so much over the summer, he would do as much as he could to help him out.

"No, not yet," Snape said. "Since I haven't formally taught you any potions, except for a little theory, I haven't sufficiently influenced you in that field, which is the only pertinent one for me, for you to be useful to me." They rounded a corner, and Snape changed the subject. "You're in a group, correct? With whom?"

"Neville Longbottom, Daphne Greengrass, and Hannah Abbot," Harry replied, quelling his irritation at them.

"Longbottom will be powerful after his fifth threshold, they have a peculiar quirk in their blood trait that does that somehow. The Abbots are an extremely wealthy family, although it isn't immediately obvious, and probably around the second best in their field, and the Greengrasses . . . no one really knows anything about them. You would solve one of the great mysteries of the Hunter world if you figured out anything from that girl," Snape said.

"She hasn't talked that much about her family life," Harry lied. It wouldn't be kind, even if she got on his nerves, to reveal that information.

"Who's your Charms teacher? Not my wife, I don't think," Snape said. "She only teaches one first year course, and besides, she would have mentioned you."

"No, Professor Barnshot," Harry said.

"Great teacher," Snape said appreciatively. "Here we are."

Snape opened the door, stepped in, and summoned a book. "Finish this, and tell me when you do. No real hurry, just before the end of December. I don't expect proficiency."

Harry glanced at the title, More Magical Drafts and Potions, and nodded. "Should I review Magical Drafts and Potions before starting this?"

"You should be fine without. Go, we both have work to do."

Harry nodded, and went back to his dormitory. It wasn't a long walk, and he got back to his room and had the time and energy to start More Magical Drafts and Potions before meeting with his group at nine. It was a pretty good read, and Harry got through the introduction before he had to depart for the classroom they had designated for their Saturday meeting spot.

He got there at exactly nine, and as he had thought, everyone else was waiting for him with bated breath, although Neville's breath was split between being bated and flirting obnoxiously with Daphne, who barely seemed to notice. When Harry walked in, she swivelled her head in his direction, and beckoned him to come in. "We've been waiting," she said, a grouchy look on her face, although her tone was neutral.

"I'm on time," Harry noted. "You're all just early."

"C'mon Potter," Neville cajoled, "tomorrow is the _Hunter _game. Of course we're early. Here, I'll start. I really like my spell. Shoots small objects, like pebbles, at a high velocity. Incantation, _waddiwassi_. Won't move anything too massive very quickly, unfortunately." Scooping pebbles out of his pocket, he handed them out to Harry, Hannah, and Daphne, who seemed not to notice that his hand lingered a little longer in hers.

Harry was grudgingly pleased at first to see a spell that he didn't know already, but quickly found fault with it. The direction was spotty at best, and dictated by the end position of the wand. If the opponent was extremely close, or had gigantic tender spots that were impossible to get at with standard magic, and needed to be hit by magic-less objects, he supposed that it might be useful as a last-ditch effort, but it was generally not that helpful. He was a little disappointed to see that Neville hadn't fully learned the ins and outs of the spell, and amused himself by trying to think of which spells to loop around it to make it useful.

In the middle of daydreaming about a combination of _Accio_ and _Waddiwassi_, he realized that Hannah had gotten off of her desk, and was explaining her spell, which could be used to plate a conductive anode in a cathode, something like instantaneous electroplating. She hadn't thought to bring sample metals, but gave fairly decent advice on how to pronounce it, "_Welter_."

Not all that irritated, given that he could think of some pretty decent uses for it, such as covering up the spots left by de-rusting charms, although Neville seemed a little put out, he turned his attention to Daphne, who indicated that Harry should go first. "Age before beauty," she suggested with a smile.

"Pearls before swine," Harry countered.

Neville looked a little confused, Hannah rolled her eyes, and Daphne looked chagrined. "_Pack_," she muttered, going for effect. Without losing time, the pebbles rose in the air, and settled themselves in her hand. With another intonation, they ordered themselves, largest on the bottom, smaller ones filling in the cracks and on top. "Think of the way you want them to be ordered," she said, "mathematics say that you should usually do big ones, then small ones."

Harry had learned how to do it, and had gotten surprisingly efficient results for his trouble, after seeing Granger do it, but decided not to show off his skill with it, and instead gave Neville pointers as he harangued Daphne. "I thought we had agreed to do spells that would be helpful at the contest," he complained.

Daphne shrugged, about as warm and receptive to his comments as a stingray. "Go fuck yourself, Neville."

"It may shave a few seconds off our time in tomorrow's game, especially since Hunter games are apparently usually search and retrieve," Harry said. Daphne gave him a surprised look, but he didn't twitch. He had nothing to gain by becoming irritated and off-balance, he _knew_ it. "Besides, it's a generally useful spell to know."

Neville grumbled, but persistently tried the spell until he could get the pebbles to jump into his hand consistently. Hannah did it until she could get a miniature Circle to slip into her pocket, and then they turned to Harry.

Harry had examined the spells advised to him by Shacklebolt, and given the other spells that they had already covered in the group, he had decided that the tripping jinx was the most different. He cast, "_Tridia_," on the ground in front of Neville, and said, "C'mere, Neville."

Neville nimbly tried to leap over the spot that Harry had spelled, and was fairly surprised to feel his leg be caught as he was tripped. He narrowly avoided having his face be rearranged by the floor, by sticking out his hands in front of him, and quickly stood up, a shaky smile on his face. "Wicked! It sets up a short, invisible wall on the ground where you cast it?" he asked.

"No, it actually grabs at the second limb as it goes over. It can be fooled by having one person's leg go over, and then the other person's leg go over, which it counts as the back leg, but it's a generally pretty useful curse."

Harry played guinea pig for the spell by letting himself be tripped up by the spell as they figured it out, as well as training himself in how to trip properly, so that he could get back up as quickly as possible, and possibly, how to evade the tripping hex. He managed to get the invisible thing to get him a little awkwardly once, but he couldn't figure out the full-on miss. After Hannah, who was inarguably worst at Hunting or fighting spells finally figured it out consistently, and was breathing heavily, they left the room, Neville patting Harry on the back. "Pretty damn cool spell," he admitted without a problem. "Wish I'd done it."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Not going to lie, pretty badass," he said, with a mocking smirk.

Neville smiled, before his eyes shot open, and he yelled at the group, "Oi, come back! Last order of business to attend to, then we can bugger off."

Neville's order of business was simple. "I think we should split up and do the Hunter challenge each by ourselves, because we're pretty much the strongest around, and there probably won't be an obvious best contributor. It will prevent infighting about who gets the first place."

"That's bullshit," Harry said, shaking his head. "We'll be killed by practically all of the other teams. Hunting is even a team job, usually."

"My great-uncle hunts alone," Neville answered calmly with a ferocious nod. "We can do it."

"My mother hunts alone as well," Daphne said, studiously avoiding Harry's eye. He knew why she hunted alone.

"I'm not even competing," Hannah said.

"What?" Harry asked, turning to her. "You're miles beyond the average in terms of hunting spells!"

"Hufflepuff has a tremendous number of revenge oriented hunting families. Those kids are real fanatics. I wouldn't have a chance," Hannah said simply. "I have a sufficient number of points, I don't need to waste my time for maybe two."

Harry sighed. "You're all nuts. Instead of all of us winning, we'll all lose." Hannah looked awkwardly at a wall, Neville and Daphne exchanged glances, and the three of them left the room, leaving Harry by himself.

* * *

A/N: Whoa, haven't updated in ten months. My apologies. Time just seems to zip past. Anyway, I'm still alive, I still breathe, I still think, I was going to hold onto this chapter until requiem (my next chapter) was done, but I decided against it. Because ten months is a long time. Don't you hate transition chapters?

Anyway, I was reading some random fan fiction, don't remember the title. Anyway, the author used the acronym EME to describe Extreme Magical Exhaustion. I was so proud--a plagiarist of my own! So I looked up "Extreme Magical Exhaustion" on google. Sadly, it turns out that the author could have plagiarized from many people, most notably A Lifetime Story Four by Iniysa, who wrote back in '04. Just to give credit where credit is due. I have also borrowed concepts from DragonGirl16 (I remember asking her if I could use the idea, but it would have been with my msn account, so I can't give you proof) and have been deeply influenced by Raven Dragonclaw's work. I intend to swipe a scene from Vox Corporis (I can show you this email where I ask if it's okay) but I have not done so yet.

Also, many thanks to the people at AFC, especially IP82, Charmscharles, and Traveller, as well as my invaluable betas. All of you kick much ass, and make sure my story's plotholes are gone, or at least secret.


	13. Requiem for a Team

A/N: Hmm, apparently I am supposed to specify that I am interested in constructive criticism. I always assume that authors want constructive criticism, and something that I would like you to consider trying is opening the "Review" window in a new window before reading through this. When the window is already open, it is very easy to alt-tab to the window, and it means that you don't need to remember all of your comments until the very end, at which point in time they might escape you.

Also, I would like to thank Traveller and Perspicacity for pointing out where I screwed the pooch, and my betas for pointing out where the English language considered disowning me. Without further ado . . .

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Thirteen

It was cold for late October. The wind rushed past him, and he pulled his cloak closer to him. He wished he could cast a warming charm on it, but he figured he would need all of the magic he could get for the coming trial, even if his plan panned out. He looked at the clouds–judging by the greyish quality to them, there was a good chance it would rain. He resisted the urge to pull his arms in from his sleeves and clutch them to his chest. He was going to need hands for this, and it wasn't smart to let his sleeves get cold in exchange for a little heat for his arms. They would suffer for it in the long run if he did it. There was a feeling of smugness, all at once from within him, and yet not quite a part of him, but he ignored it. It wasn't unfamiliar. He promised himself he would ask The Vikings if any of them was an Enchanter. He could use some temperature-controlled clothing.

A professor with familiar dreadlocks walked out to the courtyard and sat on the chair, not visibly affected by the cold. He acknowledged Harry with a nod, and bid him to come over. "Hello, Mr. Potter," he said.

Harry walked over. "Good morning, professor," he said, preventing his teeth from chattering through sheer force of will. "It's cold."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Shacklebolt replied. "You don't have a team?"

Harry grimaced. "I do, but they seem to have forgotten it. Three of us are from Hunter families, and the other two wanted shots at the bigger glory. The last figured it wasn't even worth her time."

Shacklebolt smiled. "To let your children attend Hogwarts requires a lot of money, whether through tutoring expenses or just Hogwarts' price tag. There have been small efforts to get together scholarships funds, but quite frankly, it's tremendously difficult to qualify for Hogwarts without paying a lot of money for education before it. Hunting is an extremely lucrative profession if you don't die. In a way, "the last" is correct. Statistically speaking, none of you have a strong chance." He nodded at a group of four that was coming in, wearing their winter cloaks and identical leather bags, and looking about themselves nervously, as if they expected someone to jump them before the start of the Game. "Of course, we both know that you're not so bad, so I firmly expect you to find a way to succeed, even without your . . . brilliant teammates."

"I'm working on it, sir," Harry said. "By the way, if you see a Granger, could you tell her I'm looking for her?"

Shacklebolt arched an eyebrow. "Professors can't help students in any way, shape, or form. You're not suggesting that I cheat, are you?"

"Of course not, Professor," Harry said. It wasn't such a bad problem, he could keep an eye out for her himself. He fingered the Circles he had in his pocket. He had three, and if worst came to worst, he could use the tracking charm that Hannah had shown him last month to find Granger. Bidding the professor farewell with a nod, he sat down on the undulating roots of a tree so that he was facing Hogwarts. Chances were, he would manage to see her as she came down, and he wouldn't have to find her after the Game was formally started. Of course, it would also mean that he would see his annoying teammates. He resisted the urge to nervously practice his Optomancy. It drained magic, and he suspected he would need all the magic he could get, if he wanted to properly show up his wrong-thinking friends.

It started to rain, and he saw some children, who had started out of the castle, fall back, covering their fear with the excuse of rain. This specific Challenge had been all that anyone talked about, since it was revealed in the past week to be the Hunter Challenge. Harry had initially been surprised by the reticence that most children had regarding Hunting related activities, but it made sense in a way. Hunters were only called in if there was something that anyone else couldn't handle. That meant that it was probably not simple to handle. As they had learned from Scamander, Hogwarts had stopped coddling its children two hundred years ago, and they knew it. The group that had gotten there first after Harry seemed to gain confidence, or at least the appearance of it, as others trickled in, either one by one or in pairs, telling jokes and laughing uproariously. He had a feeling it was all a front, but wasn't sure. He couldn't tell if they were all Hunters, since they were all similarly nervous. Harry didn't feel nervous. He _knew_ there wasn't a point to it. He looked up into the rain. It was only drizzling, still no fun.

Neville walked in with Daphne, his hands behind his head and a wry grin on his face. She had donned a polite smile for the occasion, but it was suspiciously strained. He wondered if she was having second thoughts, and moved his cloak so that it covered a little more of his face, exhaling deeply into the fabric of the collar to heat up the air surrounding his neck, and to conceal his face. He thought he saw her glance in his direction and he didn't move, but changed the color of his eyes to brown. She didn't look at him again, and he wondered if the ruse had worked or if he was just paranoid. It was integral for the continued growth of the team for this to happen. They needed to see the error of their ways.

He checked the time again. He had sewn a circle into his sleeve whose only function was to display the time, and had powered up the external power supply sufficiently that he wouldn't have to push any magic into it for another day, probably. There were still a few minutes until the beginning of the challenge, but Granger was cutting it close. He felt the rain start to pour, and began to smile through the headache that seemed to grip his head every time it poured. He couldn't help it, he loved the rain. He hoped Granger wouldn't be scared off by the weather.

He didn't see her at first, and she seemed to appear, as if by magic, halfway across the lawn, her hood stuck to her left shoulder by the rain. Her face peered up into the sky, and she seemed to be far more relaxed than he had seen her in the past. She shook her head a bit, her short hair splattering rain drops everywhere, before she turned towards the group, and started to run towards them. Harry made to stand, but his foot slipped and he fell into the mud. When he looked up again, she had disappeared into the cluster of students. He scowled, and his headache seemed to lessen.

Walking around the cluster, he tried to find Granger, but failed. Most likely, she was invisible or in the middle of the group. It shouldn't have been so hard, given that she was the only one who wasn't wearing a hood. Regardless, he stopped looking for her when he heard Shacklebolt start to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "We're not joking around anymore. This is the real deal. This is the first Hunting challenge of the year. And the weather's great." There were a few titters, and Harry irritably stared into the sky, the raindrops falling pleasantly onto his face. He felt a little less aggravated, but his headache returned with a vengeance. "This is going to be what we professors call a 'non-standard search and retrieve'. That means that it's going to follow the same old pattern of many of the challenges you had before, where you had to search something out and bring it back, but now, you have to search something out, beat it into submission, and then bring back an item. Understand?"

One of the children with the leather bags asked, "What do we have to bring back?"

"Maybe I'll get to that." There were a few more laughs at the boy's expense, and Harry wondered if he was shamefaced or still putting on the carefree act. "Any other questions?"

There was a small chorus of "No" over the pounding of the rain, and Harry wondered how Shacklebolt could get the normally pugnacious Hogwarts students to behave so nicely.

"Alright, you're trying to get a Golem's heartstone. There are more than enough Golems for all of you, just find one and take it out. Don't forget, points will be deducted if the heartstone is damaged, so don't use curses that are too powerful. You need to go there, and then return with the heartstone. And it doesn't count if the golem is lumbering after you. You will also be disqualified if I see you curse another student. That should be everything." Harry thought he had heard a brief spate of whispering, but wasn't sure–it could have just been the rain.

"Ready, set, go!" the professor ordered.

The group with the leather bags immediately split up, as did a few other groups, but several stragglers were left behind, surprised. "Wait, where are the golems?" one asked. Harry looked around for Granger, who hadn't left in the first Exodus, but didn't find her.

"Well, I'll give you a hint," Shacklebolt said, as if confiding in him. "They're on Hogwarts campus, and either they are in a group, or they are not."

This triggered a second exodus, consisting of what appeared to be mostly twosomes and people on their own. Harry spotted Neville and Daphne going in opposite directions, and sneered slightly. It had been too much to hope that they would use the resources that Hannah had showed them without his prompting.

Granger passed by him, nearly two feet in front of his face, and he quickly ran by her to catch up with her. "I have a proposition, Granger," he informed her, concentrating on not losing his balance in the muddy field.

"Oh? Well make it quick, some of us have a challenge to win," she said, drawing her wand. "Who the fuck are you, anyway?"

"Don't you recognize me?" Realizing that he probably looked fairly different with wet hair and differently colored eyes, he squeezed the melanin out of his eyes and switched them back to green. "It's me, Harry Potter," he said, pulling down his cloak so she could see his face.

"Oh, it's Lord Potter," she said, her demeanor immediately turning nastier. She pointed her wand at him idly, and looked slightly thoughtful, as if choosing how to curse him.

"You can't curse me yet, you'll be disqualified," Harry pointed out.

"So I'm not the only one who noticed the professor's wording."

Harry grinned as they walked. "Of course–half of the rumors that I'd heard about this was that it was in large part fighting against other first years, and how they had a map that they used to track us as we were knocked out or otherwise hurt so that they could bring us to the hospital wing if necessary. Anyway, we all came here prepared to fight."

"I hope you aren't here to challenge me to some sort of stupid pureblooded honor duel. I don't have time for that kind of stupid shit," she said, speeding up her pace. It was hard for Harry to keep up, since she had longer legs, and he tried to regulate his breathing so as not to show that he was panting.

"You have quite the vibrant imagination, Granger. But you haven't angered me in any way. In fact, I'd like to ask you for a favor." He paused for a second, to silently get some breath.

In the interim, Granger turned to him, rain running down her face in streaks, her hair plastered to her face. "And what kind of a favor could I do for the great 'Head of House Potter'?" she sneered. It was a little peculiar dealing with her today. She seemed only half-heartedly bitter at worst.

"I would like to win, but my team has split up. You are a damn good witch, and with you to watch my back, we will crush the competition."

"I feel blessed to be bestowed with that honor by you," she said, not bothering to keep a straight face. "You'd just slow me down–I'd need to get two Golems, not one."

"We'll take them down much quicker with two people, and I have a searching mechanism for them," Harry told her. She looked at him speculatively–at least he thought it was speculatively, since his vision was partially obscured by the rain, and slowed down a little.

"And why would you trust me not to curse you?" she asked.

"Someone taught me how to make binding oaths, they're not very hard, only take a few seconds," Harry reassured her, catching up his breath.

"How will we be bound?" she asked, her curious side coming through.

"Magic. There will be a penalty if either of us break the bond."

She stopped short, and thought for a second. "Well, a searching mechanism sounds considerably faster than what I had intended to do, so let's go. How does this bond thing work?" She looked at him suspiciously. "It's not going to bind me to your service permanently, is it?"

Harry ignored her comment. "You just have to say, 'I concur' when I ask you to. Sound good?"

"That doesn't exactly allay my fears," she muttered, before giving a terse nod, throwing off Harry slightly. Based on what he knew about her, she should have been far less trusting. He briefly wondered what it was that had let her relax so much. Perhaps he wasn't the only person who liked the rain.

"Great. Now hold up your thumb." Harry drew Snape's bloodletting knife, and pressed it to his arm, before squeezing. There was a brief twinge of pain in his arm, and he quickly pressed his arm against the blood, making a small thumbprint, before pressing his thumb to Granger's. "I call upon the Covenant of Lustitia, my party's sacrifice being to do all that is within my power to help the other party succeed as quickly as possible in this task, not returning to the professor until the other party is assured of success. The other party's sacrifice is the same." It was wildly different, being the person who initiated the ritual, as opposed to the other person in the ritual. He had an uncomfortable burning sensation coursing through his body, and although it was amusing to see Granger start at the flames burning out the word "Concur?" in front of her eyes, he wasn't sure he would be doing this ritual again any time soon unless the occasion forced it.

"I concur," Granger said, her lips tight, studiously not looking at Harry. Instantly, the red vine shot up their arms, inducing Granger to gasp. She shivered as it disappeared from view and crossed her shoulder to her neck.

Harry smiled, relieved, and pulled a Circle out of his pocket. "This is a Circle, and it will search the area around us for whatever we're looking for. He pulled his fantastic creatures reference book out of another pocket, flipped to the page on golems, and initiated the copying charm on the book. He felt a relatively small pull on his magic, and in a second, there was an extra copy of the page lying on top of the first. He ripped it out of the book, and placed it face down on the circle. He muttered, "Read." The copy buckled, almost as if it was being pulled along the middle into the Circle's sheet. It then squirmed in the other direction, so that the middle stuck out slightly, and the edges began to merge with the Circle. It ceased its quivering after a few seconds, and he ordered, "Search."

Instantly, it turned into what appeared to be a map of the area, with a dot for the center of the circle, and small red dots all around, absolutely still.

The girl snorted. "Pretty impressive, Potter," she said.

Harry smirked, and said, "Less talking, more flying." He pulled his Windstaff out of his pocket, enlarged it, and mounted, motioning for Granger to do the same. She sat on it awkwardly, clearly not familiar with it. "Cast a sticking charm on your hands, Granger, it would be bad if you fell off.."

He heard a whispered, "_Cum Gekkonidae_," and he flew towards a pair of red dots, the map recalibrating every few seconds.

"So, you know how to kill these things?" Harry asked.

"So the great Lord Potter doesn't know everything? Asking the silly little muggle-raised girl for help?" she taunted as she gripped his shirt.

"Come on, Granger, no one knows everything," he said. His headache was making him slightly short tempered, and he sped up a little. "Fuck the foreplay, just tell me if you know."

He felt her grip on him shift, and figured she had probably nodded. "Well, you can just batter them into submission, although that would risk destroying the heartstone. Golems are made out of some kind of a substance, such as wood or metal, and are animated by the power in three Hebrew characters. If you erase the one on–Jesus," she said, pausing as Harry evaded a tree, "on the far right, it will stop moving. The other option is to wait until it runs out of power, but they tend to be fairly efficient systems, and if made by a sufficiently powerful wizard, it isn't really worth the time."

"Where will they be on the Golem?" he asked.

"Traditionally, they go on the forehead, but that's not exactly the safest place, so I'd say there's a good chance they are hidden. Definitely on the surface of the body though."

Harry focused some magic into the lenses of his eyes, and through the rain, saw the golems in a clearing in front of them. "Hold on, Granger." In a second, they were flying vertically, and Harry cried, "_Golemardium Leviosa!_" flinging the golem farthest from them fully out of the clearing.

"What the fuck, Potter," Granger muttered, gripping his cloak for dear life as they returned to horizontal flight.

Harry remembered that she probably hadn't been able to see the Golems, and smiled. "I moved away one of the golems, and we can concentrate on the other until the first one comes back, or just go after the first if it doesn't feel like returning."

"And you don't need line of sight for that?" she asked.

"Actually, you do," he said. He didn't elaborate.

They touched down, and there was a slightly awkward moment as Granger tried to get off the broom while still sticking to Harry. With a _finite_, she stopped sticking to him, and he shrunk down his Windstaff again. The golem was made out of sandstone, and was currently in a position identical to statues of the thinker, but Rodin's work probably didn't stir when people came close.

"Let's just see if we can immobilize him to figure out where his Hebrew characters are," Granger suggested. "Do you have any good immobilization charms?"

"_Petrificus Totalus_ might not work if the target is already stony."

Granger was silent for a second, before dropping her backpack to the ground and opening it up. "Buy us a little time, Potter. I have just the thing, actually." The golem ambled towards them, its motionless face thoughtful as it bore down on them.

Harry thought for a second, before readying his wand. "You have at least twenty seconds, Granger," he said.

When the golem was within a few meters of them, Granger looked up, and began to curse. "It's right there you fucking retard, what the fuck are you doing, you cockstain?"

"It's under control," Harry told her calmly. It got within striking distance, and in a few parts of a second, raised its arm and let it fall, just as Harry cast _Laerad_, slightly surprised by the speed of the golem. The dragon's roar came again, echoing through his head, although it responded a little quicker, and the incoming arm was thrown violently away as branches sprouted from the tip of his wand. He heard Granger breathe a sigh of relief, and he held the wand steady, even as he felt small reverberations along it from the golem banging away at the protective shell it served as. Surprisingly quickly, the golem switched its plan of attack to pulling off branches. As it revealed more and more of Harry and Hermione hiding in the tree-like shield, the branches moved to obscure them again, moving faster than the golem worked. However, there were only a limited number of branches, and after they were gone, Harry would most likely have to cast the spell again, and he wasn't sure how many times he could do that.

"Almost done, Granger?" he asked cooly, belying the nervousness he felt.

"Just a few more seconds," she said. Her voice had a muffled tone, and he wondered what she was getting out of her bag. The holes that the golem was revealing in the shield were getting larger and larger, and Harry began to mentally prepare himself for casting it again. Suddenly, Granger was right next to him. "Dispel the shield, Potter," she said, positioning some things on the ground.

Harry said, "_Finite_," and the shield disappeared. The golem instantly refocused its attack, and now that Harry could see its face again, the motionlessness was slightly eerie.

Granger cast a series of "_Waddiwasi_", throwing glass bottles at the golem, which shattered on impact, splashing the golem all over. The golem slowed for a second, before raising its arm, and stopping motionless. Its raised right hand continued to jiggle, but Harry relaxed.

"Did you know beforehand that it was going to be golems?"

"No, that was just a reinforcing potion, they come in handy–I figured the sandstone had to be weakened for the golem to be able to move, and I was right. Also, I had a blasting hex on the tip of my tongue if it didn't work out. Now let's find those characters."

They were hidden on the lower back of the golem, and after erasing the right-most character, the hand stopped jiggling. "Now, to get the heartstone out," Granger wondered, poking the golem with her wand. "There's a specific spell for summoning it–I've been looking for a golem's heartstone, truth be told–but I don't remember the spell. It's intangible until after it leaves the golem's body, so we can't just hack and slash the body until we find it, as it might become solid around where we were hacking and slashing–almost inevitably, actually."

"_Accio_," Harry cast through grit teeth. His headache was completely ruining the rain. A light pink disk extruded from the Golem's leg, and flew up into his hand.

"Nice," Granger complimented him. "Now let's get mine." As she said that, the other golem came walking back, its visage less easily recognizable. It was completely black and clad in what seemed like royal garb, his left side fairly scraped up, apparently where he hit the ground.

Harry pocketed the heartstone, and cast the tripping jinx on it. It fell, and slowly pushed itself up by its arms alone, not using its legs to help it up. With a mighty push, it got up again, and continued to walk.

"Did you see that streak of red on its back?" Granger asked him, excited. "I think that its characters are in the same place."

"Right. More importantly, it has a weird method of getting up, and I'd bet it's highly stereotyped. I'm going to trip it again–then, you'll run over to it and rub out the character–I'll keep it distracted." He cast the tripping jinx on the ground in front of the golem again, and it tripped nicely, just as before. Granger ran over to the golem, and walked around to behind its back as it tried to push itself up. Harry cast _Tor_ on the ground where the golem's hands were placed, making the ground even muddier, and causing it to slip when it tried to fully push itself up.

In a flash, Granger had stepped on its legs, further hindering its progress, and from that point, bent down and rubbed out the right-most character. It stopped mid pushup, and Harry walked over, fairly tired from his gratuitous use of spells, as Granger stood over it, repeatedly pointing her wand at it, moving it somewhat like how Harry had done it, and saying, "Accio!"

Harry moved next to her, and with a flourish, cast, "_Accio_". The heartstone neatly came up into his hand, and he handed it to Granger, who growled and stuffed it into her bag.

"How the fuck did you do that?" she asked, as he pulled out the Windstaff again.

"I'll tell you another time," he said absentmindedly, hoping that this victory would be decisive enough that there wouldn't have to be another time. This should have proven that two were far better than one. Maybe he would explain the books to her.

Granger cast the sticking charm on herself, and they began to fly back to Shacklebolt. "So who gets first place?" Granger asked.

Harry grimaced. The rain hitting his face from above and also from the side would have been a nice and comforting feeling if it wasn't for this damnable headache. All in all, he didn't really want to deal with this. "Are you kidding? I did practically all of the work. You wouldn't have even been able to extract the heartstone without me–you couldn't get the summoning to work, and I basically subdued the golem both times to buy you time."

"Hey, you would have had to leaf through your book if I hadn't told you how to defeat it, or, actually, you probably would have destroyed the heartstone while looking for it is more likely," she argued. "Besides, you have like a million points, it's not like you need anymore."

"That's bullshit," Harry said, slowing down and altering his eyes' lenses. As soon as he could see Shacklebolt, he sped up in his direction, altering his lenses to keep Shacklebolt in focus along the way. "My searching mechanism and Windstaff were far more necessary to speeding up the process–I could have used the search function on the book too. Besides, your argument that I have a million points is socialist, and Hogwarts operates on a meritocracy–if you think of points as capital, which is basically what they are, it's the most extreme form of capitalism, with rule by the richest. Don't be a sore winner, Granger–you were helpful, but you mostly hung around for the ride. I could have done the tripping hex to the other golem too."

He could almost feel her suppressing her urge to curse him, and wished he had just let her be first. After a minute, as they got close to Shacklebolt, she muttered, "Fine."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, and they dismounted, again with a small amount of awkwardness as Granger tried to get off the Windstaff while still stuck to Harry. Harry pulled his heartstone out of his pocket as Granger looked around her bag for hers, and gave it to Shacklebolt. Off to the side, he saw Daphne sprinting back, surprisingly, apparently the first one after him and Granger.

"Very good, Mr. Potter. You get one point for finishing, two points for coming in first in your house, two points for coming in first overall, two points for a perfectly intact heartstone, and one point for not getting hurt at all. Ms. Granger, Ms. Greengrass, assuming that your heartstone are both intact, and you are both intact, you will each get the same number of points, minus the two for first in the school." Granger showed him her heartstone, which was unmarred, as did Daphne, although hers was slightly chipped on the side. "Deduction of a point, Ms. Greengrass," he said amiably. "It's only a small scratch, so it's still usable. You can all keep your heartstones. Now get out of here, you don't need to be in the rain any longer."

"Harry, you won," Daphne said, her voice somewhat muted. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised." She turned toward the castle, and sprinted off.

Granger laughed. "That girl's on your team, isn't she? Trouble in paradise, I suppose. Well, nothing lasts forever, and it probably doesn't help that you're such a fucking prat." Her voice softened, just a bit. "I suppose that you're not so bad for such a fucking prat, though, I would have had to walk without my ride." She ruffled his hair with a flick of her wand, a gust of air shooting through it.

Irritated that she had basically elucidated his problem in a matter of seconds, he asked, "Why the fuck are you so damn chipper today?"

"Well, for one, I just learned that I'm the damn good witch, ah, DGW I suppose, which is pretty exciting. For two, it's raining! How can I not be happy? This is the best weather in the whole damn world!"

Harry pursed his lips. "I'd agree with you, if my head wasn't hurting so fucking badly." As he revealed this, the ache in his head got worse. "Goddamnit, it's almost as if my head is telling me not to like the rain."

"I guess being born of magical parents doesn't make you invulnerable to being crazy. Your head is yours alone, no?" Aggravated by her unhelpful comment, he decided that he wouldn't tell her how to use the books, and his headache abated, almost as if his petty vengeance relieved it.

"One would think."

Hannah gave Harry a slightly worried look as he walked into the empty classroom the next day to meet with his group. He gathered that his actions the day before hadn't really been appreciated, and mentally steeled himself. Of course, he had somewhat figured that from the way the three of them had sat apart from him in class, and how Neville had thrown a scrap of paper asking him to meet with the group later on his desk at the beginning of Magical History and gone over to sit with Daphne and Hannah and scowl at him from across the room. Just a hunch.

"Wonderful day," Harry said, looking out the window and ignoring Neville's sneer and Daphne's obvious irritation. "Clouds everywhere, looks like it might rain for the rest of the week." He felt a small pain in his head, but it went away quickly. He couldn't be distracted if this was to work out properly. He sat on the teacher's desk at the front of the class, feeling the irony of the situation. He had been the one who was left in the dust, but he was going to be the one lectured. Hannah and Daphne sat to Neville's left and right, and Harry noticed that his traditional spot next to Neville and Hannah was gone. They clearly meant business.

Neville didn't mince words. "What the fuck, Potter."

"I have no idea what you mean, Mr. Longbottom," he said. He opted to keep his face mostly clear of emotions–it would anger Neville more than was necessary if he pretended innocence.

"We're a team, Potter, you can't just forget about us and help out some other sod whenever you damn feel like it," he said.

Harry began to feel a little angry. "Yes, we're a team, and as a team, we should stick together when we can, so that we can help each other out. Instead, you and Daphne decided to split up and try to win the damn thing by yourselves! It's not a surprise that you didn't pick up first for your house. At least I can see why Daphne might have wanted to do it by herself."

Daphne shot him an absolutely seething look, telling him he had lost any possible support he could have gotten from that corner. Neville missed it though, and got louder. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Are you saying I'm less competent than her?"

"That's not what I said," Harry said calmly, reevaluating his position. He had figured that Hannah wouldn't really care, since she hadn't lost any points, and that Daphne had done about as well as she could have, given the circumstances, and wouldn't be worse than neutral in this argument–if she sided with Neville, it could have some sort of bad repercussions for Harry. Double duty at study sessions, perhaps. Harry wondered who would think of the punishment, but decided instead to focus on his defense.

"You bloody well implied it!"

"No I didn't, it's something you extrapolated from the context. Although I can see why you might think that, it isn't what I meant," Harry said.

Neville took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Alright, let's say that's true. Still, it's ridiculous that you worked with someone else against us."

"It's ridiculous that you didn't want to work with me. We could have taken apart the competition easily," Harry said. Neville didn't really have a leg to stand on here.

"Regardless, it was not something you should have done, as a good teammate, to side with someone directly against me. You were hurting my chances by helping her."

"You weren't even second in line, Neville. The group from England with the leather bags came in right after Daphne, you wouldn't have gotten first in Gryffindor," Harry said. The group from England was a group to be worried about–Harry had read about the English the other night. Membership largely passed down through patriarchal or matriarchal lines, although it was possible to get in through other means, simply not very easy. Harry was slightly surprised to find that grandfather Potter had been in it, but his father had forfeited the right to membership to the ladder. He wondered what he had found that was so much better.

"And you hurt Daphne's chances by working against her, too! If you hadn't worked with that girl against her, she might have gotten first place," Neville added, with an air of finality.

"Oh, shut up Neville," Harry said with a scowl, finally losing his patience. "That's the stupidest argument I've ever heard–well guess what, I was also in the tournament, and if I hadn't worked with Granger, and I had still gotten first place, it wouldn't have changed anything, but you wouldn't have been so angry. Why are you so angry after all? You guys fell through, so I found another option."

"You shouldn't have, you should have worked by yourself, like we did! We're your team, if we decide to face adversity, you should do it with us!"

"To show solidarity," Harry said flatly, incredulous.

"Yes, as we would have done for you!" Neville replied.

"That's ridiculous," Harry said. "Just because you want to take a dive doesn't mean I do."

"Then maybe you and the team should split up," Neville said gravely.

This was not what Harry had expected, at all. It was, frankly, suicidal on Neville's part. The team had performed well on challenges in the past mostly on the shoulders of Harry's tutoring, if through Daphne and not him. He briefly regretted helping her out all of those times, before shaking himself out of it. Perhaps that could be used to his advantage. He looked to Daphne, before discarding that idea. She was still infuriated at him, perhaps rightly. He looked to his last possible ally. "Hannah, please, this is crazy."

She shook her head. "Sorry Harry, I have to side with Neville on this. You come to nearly every one of our meetings late, and although you often have interesting spells, it isn't really worth the time we waste waiting for you. Besides, whatever went on between you and Daphne was detrimental to the group–the tension has not been helping, and I feel like her contribution hasn't been as good since whatever happened, happened." Harry hadn't known that it had been so obvious, and tried to gauge what Daphne was feeling. She looked slightly offended, but it wasn't her usual offended look, with her lips slightly parted–she looked slightly like she was sucking on something very sour, her lips were so stuck together. "It was also a dick move on your part to get another Gryffindor to help you for the test–you knew that I wasn't competing, you could have gotten a Hufflepuff to do it with you."

"I don't know any Hufflepuffs," Harry said bitterly. "I've invested all of my time and energy into this group. I've been integral to its success, and you want to kick me out?"

Neville let loose a noise midway between a snarl and a huff. "Back off, asshole. I started this group, Potter, don't forget it," Neville said. "We don't need you."

Harry caught Neville's gaze and delivered a withering look. "House Potter and House Longbottom are allied. Didn't I tell you?" he quoted. Neville got a slightly strangled look, and Daphne eyed Neville strangely. Hannah was unaffected. "Alright, fine. I guess this is how it's going to be."

Neville looked strangely put out, and got to his feet and walked out the door, not meeting Harry's eye or the eyes of his remaining teammates. Hannah stared after him, but didn't budge. Daphne didn't either for a second, but seeing that Hannah wanted to leave last, pursed her lips slightly.

Daphne got up in a manner that seemed bizarre and out of place on an eleven year old, almost as if she was trying to sway her hips slightly. In his aggravated state, Harry barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes, and wondered why she hadn't said a word in the entire encounter. She got close to Harry, and seemed to breathe on him. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw her breath for a second, and then it was gone. She whispered breathily, "I had hoped you would ask me to help you in the challenge–you were right, even if you were tasteless–I couldn't work properly with Neville watching, but I dispatched the golem quickly with some of my family's spells. Would have been even quicker with your help."

"Eh, too late," Harry said bluntly. Her eyes widened almost comically, and she left without another word, although she seemed somewhat shaken.

Hannah slid off the desk, her feet hitting the floor distinctly, making two separate noises. "Sorry we were so harsh on you Harry, but you have to know that you can't just be an asshat. No one really takes nicely to it. We're on a team, you should act like it."

Harry felt another unreasonable burst of irritation towards her, and as his headache reared again, dug his fingernails into his temple. "Hmm," he said, wishing she would leave. She had contributed decently to the team after all, she had a real stake in it, unlike the other two.

She walked towards the door, before glancing out the window. "Oh look Harry, there's a hole in the clouds."

He looked out the window, and sure enough, there was a large blue hole, where sunlight was drifting through. "That is certainly true," he agreed, fighting to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"Maybe it won't rain after all," she said hopefully. "Neville will probably let you back into the group if you just ask him, you were a pretty good addition–it was just that you were always late, in large part," she said almost apologetically.

"Those are called sucker holes, Ms. Abbott," Harry said. "Believe me, it's going to rain. And it's going to pour." He took a small bit of joy at the thought. Thankfully, his head decided not to punish him for the idea.

Hannah shrugged. "Well, you can call on me. No hard feelings, yes?"

Harry thought for a second, before asking, "You ever hear of the Vikings?"

"No, who are they? A ladder?" she said, puzzled as to the peculiar turn in their conversation.

Harry smiled a little wider. "Don't worry about it. Yes, no hard feelings. See you in class.

A/N: Yes, one of my shorter chapters. It seemed like a good place to end the chapter. Maybe the next chapter will be a little longer. Please review, I would like to hear if the synopsis was useful, whether you see any flaws in the writing, and/or what you thought of the chapter.

Aspiring authors: Please direct your attention to my beta profile. I will not do beta work (novel approach, no?) but I will look over your story and say, "This is good, this is bad, this is a plot hole, blah blah blah". The profile explains everything.


	14. Troll

So you might have noticed, this is coming out a little late. School has been pretty all-consuming, and now that I have free time, I find that I spend it all playing video games. I hope to get at least one more chapter up this summer, but I'm going to be holding a full time job-although 40 hours a week is considerably less time than college takes up, I still won't have much time for writing.

Anyway, thanks to the crew at Alpha Fight Club for making sure that my fight scene doesn't suck quite as much as it could have, and here's fair warning-this has only been partially beta'd, and I didn't show the end to anyone before posting it, so there will probably be a few typos/omitted words and I might have forgotten something that I wrote six years ago (Jesus Christ I'm old) in the back story. I would appreciate it if you alerted me to any errors you see in the story, and generally any constructive criticism you can possibly give me. This is my first fight scene, but theoretically there should be more down the line, so please be as harsh as possible so that I can get better at them.

Wit of the Raven

Chapter Fourteen

The actions of his former group made Harry wonder what he had seen in them in the first place. As far as he could tell, they hadn't really done anything for the past few days, since he often saw them around campus in the times when they had usually met to study and share spells. It seemed almost like they were expecting him to go back and apologize. Harry had briefly considered it, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble. In retrospect, some of their accusations were pretty accurate. He had been frequently the last to arrive to meetings, in large part because he didn't really feel like dealing with the drama with Daphne or trying to pretend that Neville's passes at her weren't pathetic.

At the beginning of English class, they cornered McAndrews, and invited him to be their replacement Harry. The group had gotten the top four places in a couple of challenges in September, and had garnered something of a reputation amongst the other kids in the year. Judging by the combination of his facial expression and body language at the time, he was briefly flattered, before he considered the one who had left the group. He glanced at Harry, who stared blithely at a point above his head, and McAndrews' body language expressed a slight concern. Harry wasn't sure what he was thinking. He still wasn't great at reading lips, but he barely had to look at them to see his response, "Thanks, but no thanks." Hannah and Daphne shrugged, and went back to their seats, but Longbottom didn't stop trying to convince him until Wyrner told him to sit down and kindly stop bothering Mr. McAndrews.

Harry could see why Longbottom pursued him. Apparently being the son of "noted spell theorists" made him somewhat of an celebrity amongst intellectuals. Cho had told Harry that the French were currently processing his application to join their ladder as quickly as humanly possible. She had complained bitterly that the Vikings couldn't have two Ravenclaws in Harry's year. Harry had been surprised that Cho was privy to the French ladder's private affairs, and she had promised to tell all before the yearly Hallowe'en feast. With a mental reprimand, he reminded himself that now that he was free of his group, he had an extra hour a few times a week to do whatever he wished. It wouldn't do to waste that time by wondering about his former group's petty power plays.

At lunch, Harry sat by himself at one of the smaller tables, with room for either one or two people. From experience, he knew that they were enchanted to grow a little if a third person sat down, but simply couldn't accommodate four.

The group had decided to sit with McAndrews again for lunch, close enough that Harry was practically forced into eavesdropping. He was unsure whether this was intentional or not. He wondered how Neville had managed to keep McAndrews from running away once they had gotten to the hall, since the kind of table Harry was sitting would have sat four only awkwardly. "Oi, Finn–don't you ever want to go on an adventure, beat some challenges,? It'll be a blast, and we have a crack team of kids, to be honest. Hannah is a fantastic chixor, Daphne and I are genuinely great hunters. We've been sharing knowledge, and it has all been going along very well, especially since Hannah is so knowledgeable in her field, but everything would go so much faster if we had your skill at learning new spells." Neville smiled. "I know I've said it before, but we've always been impressed by how quickly you pick up new spells in charms class."

McAndrews sighed, and Harry resisted a smile, stuffing his mouth with pasta instead. Yes, flattery wouldn't get him very far, even if it was accurate. Neville needed to update the sales pitch. Harry went back to his meal, and managed to zone out of their conversation for a few minutes, but an especially stressed out sigh on McAndrews' part tricked him into listening again.

"While I appreciate the compliment," McAndrews said, his voice slightly strained, "I am still going to have decline your invitation. I'm not interested in adventure, I can learn how to write The Code myself if need be, and the time lost by explaining spell theory to you could be better used just studying it myself. It's simply not to my advantage to take you up on your offer." With a small clatter, he attacked his lunch violently. Harry could imagine the poor roast beef being torn to bits by his cutlery, and barely suppressed a laugh

"Come on," Daphne said with a somewhat peculiar tone, halfway between disheartened and flirtatious. "Harry explained some magical theory to us, it wasn't so bad. We're not complete idiots."

There was another ting from McAndrews, possibly him setting down his cutlery, although it didn't have the clatter that came with just letting silverware fall. "It took me six years of near constant studying to get a decent grasp of magical theory. If Potter is really so good at explaining magical theory, then you should have kept him in your damn group," he said, his voice fairly calm. It trembled slightly as he got to "you", but it had smoothed out again by the time he arrived at "damn". "If you really kicked him out like you said, then you're even more idiotic than I first took you for." McAndrews stood up, and took his plate over to another, unoccupied chair, before returning briefly for his drink. Harry didn't hear anymore words being exchanged, although he could imagine the looks the members of his ex-group were trading.

Fairly amused by the vindication, Harry fought the urge to directly stare at their table. Instead, he moved around his glass of water until he could see his ex-group in the condensation. It looked like McAndrews' change in seat had drawn some attention, and he decided to get a better, less distorted look. He looked over to Longbottom, who gave him an unreadable look until he realized it was returned. Flushing, Neville looked slightly chagrined, and looked away. Hannah wasn't looking at him, and Daphne's eyes were narrowed, although she returned his glance. Her posture was casual, but something seemed slightly off. Altering his lens, he focused on her fingers. The table cloth was slightly deformed by how she was clutching it. Something about his look distressed her.

The thought lost Harry his appetite, since she had seemed only a little weird when they were kicking him out. This was like the metamorphosis from man-killing butterfly to man-cowered caterpillar. Harry didn't really feel like questioning her, but he would keep an eye on her, just in case. If she had discovered one of the things that Snape had advised him to hide, he supposed he had blackmail, but it wasn't really something he wanted to be forced into using. What could unnerve the great Greengrass so? Harry wasn't sure he knew.

He finished up his meal and left. The environment was getting a little chilly for him.

Neville and Co gave up on McAndrews, and Neville just sulked through the rest of the day. After class got out, Harry did his written homework before the Hallowe'en feast, so that he would have some free time for practicing magic afterward.

When it was time for the feast, thousands of kids streamed in, and Harry realized that barely anyone ate during the Great Hall, usually. The hall was expanded, while before it had been easy to find a table, now it was find a needle in a haystack, except the needle turned into hay if you waited too long to claim it. The food had already appeared on the tables by the time he found one, and he took the opportunity to look around the room. It was gorgeous. Gigantic pumpkins lined the edge of the room, and the chandeliers had been converted into massive jack-o-lanterns. The lights were turned down, and an eerie blue color. Everyone seemed paler, and the decor on the walls, which Harry hadn't even thought twice about since the first day, stood out in stark contrast to the white, illuminating the exquisite craftsmanship. He wondered if they had been coated in something special so they behaved that way.

Harry dug in, and was pleasantly surprised to find that everything was pumpkin-flavored, but that it wasn't half bad, even the pumpkin-spiced ham. Midway through the meal, he was interrupted.

Dumbledore strode into the room, and seemed to catch everyone's eye, as the entire room instantly turned to see him. Resounding from all of the corners of the room, clearly the result of some spell, he announced, "There is an impromptu challenge–a troll has been let loose in the dungeons. First and second years, please do not leave the Great Hall, you do not have the requisite experience to combat a troll. NEWT-level students, the prize would be so piddling to you that it's a waste of your time. A prize will only be awarded if you can succeed in knocking him unconscious only. He's a bit intoxicated, but that's no reason that he should be executed. Killing him will result in expulsion."

Immediately, 3rd through 5th years began streaming out of the room, cheering, while 6th and 7th years jeered. It seemed like this was an annual appearance. Harry saw some first years try to follow, but they were stopped at the doors by prefects. Harry didn't even get up–he was pretty sure of his limitations, and figured it wouldn't be worth the expenditure of time, with all of the other kids looking for the troll–besides, he wasn't even sure if he could knock it unconscious, so even if he found it, it wouldn't be that useful. Better was to just eat.

Looking around the thinned room, Harry noticed that there were considerably less students who looked like 6th and 7th years than ones who looked like 1st and 2nd years. He wondered if they usually found somewhere else to eat, or if Hogwarts lost students to attrition as you went up through the years.

A few minutes later, in the middle of a piece of pumpkin pie, an explosion rocked the hall, and smoke billowed up from the center. Harry glanced towards it, then furrowed his brow. It seemed somewhat nonsensical to fill the center with smoke to go and follow the troll, since it simply drew attention, and wasn't near enough to the doors to help some elude the prefects. It must simply be misdirection. Sure enough, the prefects scurried towards the center, to figure out what had happened and to suppress the smoke. A few people coughed. Harry glanced toward Dumbledore, who was looking toward a door on the far side of the hall. A familiarly cropped and frizzy hairstyle was walking very briskly towards the exit. Harry glanced back at Dumbledore, who seemed more amused than anything, and decided to follow her, to see what kind of trouble she got into. He stuffed a couple of slices of ham into a napkin and shoved them into his pocket, and jogged to catch up with her.

He managed to catch her right before she turned down a spiral staircase, and still huffing from the exertion, managed to give her a small military salute.

Granger sneered at him and walked down the staircase, not slowing her pace. After a few minutes of silence, she grumbled as she led them on a brisk walk down the hall, "Just don't get in my way."

"What even makes you think they won't get to the troll first?"

"No one went down this hall, dumbass. I was watching."

Harry shrugged. "Sure, I won't interfere. But I'm not just going to stand by and get killed.."

"Fine."

They walked on, Granger looking both ways at the end of the halls, and Harry just focusing on keeping up with her. After the third intersection, they turned right. Midway down the hall, Granger stopped, quickly followed by Harry. He gave her a questioning look, but she held a finger to her lips, and tilted her head to the side. Harry closed his eyes, and listened. At first he heard nothing, but as his ears got better acclimated to the near-silence, he could hear heavy breathing in the distance, coming from the right. He nodded at her, and pointed in the direction the breathing had come from. She rolled her eyes.

"No shit, Sherlock. Now, listen closely. If it all goes to hell, find cover. I have strengthening potions that should be able to keep us safe until . . . well until the troll batters through them."

"You mean until we escape hell."

"Good paraphrase." She started jogging toward the sound, feeling around in her bag for something as she went. Harry ran to keep up.

When they got there, Granger ducked her head in through the door. She scanned inside for a second, before pulling her head out and nodding to Harry, putting her finger to her lips again. Harry motioned that she should hold up her shoe in the air. After a few seconds of his miming, she got the message and shook her head, turning back to the door. Harry grabbed her arm, and chalked "Perthro" on his right shoe, and stamped his foot. She brought up her shoulders to wince, and raised her hand to smack Harry, before she realized that it hadn't made a sound. She nodded, braced herself against the wall with a hand, and held out her shoes for Harry to chalk, first the left, and then the right.

Granger pulled out her wand, and stuck it in her back pocket. She pulled out a flask filled with grey fog, and pushed the door open quietly. It barely creaked. She crept in, and Harry followed her. They came on little cat feet into the room. Suddenly, everything seemed all at once clearer and more frantic.

The troll smelled of rotting leaves and ammonia. The next thing he noticed was its size. A quick glance around revealed that the room was a bathroom. Stalls lined the wall opposite them, stretching an impossible length. On the wall parallel to the stalls was an enormous mirror, with a row of sinks beneath it. There weren't any windows. Harry hoped that Granger wasn't stupid enough to release a potion that would saturate the air.

The troll was kneeling into a stall, drinking from a toilet bowl. Granger shook as she drew back her hand in preparation for throwing the bottle. Harry drew his wand. The troll gave a groan of contentment. It began to slowly back out of the stall. Granger gave a little gasp. She threw the potion at its back. The bottle shattered. The troll looked over its shoulder in interest. The fog quickly dissipated in the air. Patches of it stuck to the troll's skin, but that too faded.

"God fuck it all," she whispered.

The troll began to turn towards the pair. Granger walked quickly away from its gaze, trying to keep herself opposite its back. Harry stuck with her. He turned his head so that he could see what she was fishing out of her bag as well as keep the troll in his peripheral vision.

"No spells you can use?" His heart hammered in his chest.

"You think a bloody first-year can take down a troll with spells? If I can't outsmart this guy, then I probably deserve to die anyway, y'know. We're going to break for the stalls."

She reached the opposite corner of the room from the troll. She cocked her arm again, holding a second flask, filled half-way with a light blue chemical. The troll pivoted on the ball of its foot and began walking briskly toward the pair. Granger threw the flask. It missed, landing between the troll's legs. She cursed.

She ran for a stall. One hand flailed to keep her balanced, as the other rifled through her bag. Harry could feel the monster in his stomach again, but managed to quell his urges. He went with her into the stall, suppressing his desire to curse the troll to oblivion. He stood on the tank of the toilet. He scrambled over the partition into the next stall. He crouched on the toilet. He breathed as quietly as possible. It was safer to split up.

"Ditching me?" Granger muttered.

"I won't interfere."

"Fu-fuck you." Her voice shivered.

Harry dimly heard a second glass bottle break. Almost as dimly as he registered the pain of a migraine coming on. Soon after, some liquid sloshed to the ground. Granger inhaled quickly. Harry decided that it hadn't had the desired effects. The heavy footsteps of the troll moved closer to their stalls. He heard her slam the stall's door shut. He heard her fumbling with the lock. He realized something. There was pretty much an even chance of something. What was it. Right–that the troll would go for his door, if he was tracking them by scent. Everything was harder to rationalize, but he remembered to draw his wand through the fog of unadulterated aggression that was slowly penetrating his brain. He considered spells that he could use if the troll punched in the door, or ripped it off its hinges, and prepared to overload them; he was in the correct frame of mind already. All it would take was the ability to remember his wand movements. They weren't complex for this kind of spell. He yearned and feared for the troll to come knocking. He stared at the door in anticipation.

He heard the sound of fabric shifting. He glanced over the partition between the stalls. He saw Granger. She took careful aim with her wand. She cast, "Stupefy, stupefy, stupefy!" He saw two thick red streaks of light. They were followed by a pathetic yellowish one. Her breathing accelerated. Harry turned his head a little to see her. With Granger taking up her new job as professional Troll-bait, he felt less anxious and slightly disappointed about the prospects of a Troll arriving at his doorstep, especially since the stunners hadn't stopped the troll, except for what sounded like a small change in direction. Harry had read about the spell, although he hadn't bothered with studying it that closely. He was years away from the level of theory he needed to know to get the proficiency he would need to stun a big man, much less a troll. He doubted her spell had even made the troll drowsy. Granger took a deep breath, and cast, "Kinch, kinch, kinch." She took another breath, aimed again, and cast the same three spells. For each of the casts, a red and silver light streaked away from her wand, first over Harry's head, and then to a spot right in front of Harry's doors. Harry doubted the knife spells had done any damage, and tried to breathe more quietly, even as his heart was beating a tattoo.

He saw the troll's pale legs walk by underneath, and bit back the urge to curse them to high hell. Granger began to whisper a stream of gibberish profanities, and Harry had the distinct feeling that he was trapped on death row. He heard the sound of glass shattering on a rigid surface, and Granger spluttering; she must have thrown a potion at the door in front of her. Probably a strengthening potion. The troll punched the door, with a loud crashing noise, but the typical splintering one didn't follow it. Harry heard Granger scrambling up the tank. The troll repeated its crashing noise. Harry anticipated her next move. He jumped off the toilet seat. She climbed over the partition. She fell down to the tank. The troll made its crashing noise a third time. It ended with a satisfying splintering noise. It groaned. Harry heard an 'un-splintering' noise. The troll carefully extricated its hand from the door.

"Interfere, you fucker!"

Harry shifted his weight. "Stay behind me or a door until I finish this spell."

"What spell?"

Harry kicked open the door. He elicited an undignified squeaking noise from the troll. He muttered, "Reducto!" A red beam of light shot across the room. It shattered the mirror entirely. Granger clambered over the next partition. The troll whirled around as quickly as it could. Harry sprinted out of the stall. Behind him, he could hear the troll laugh with a sick amusement.

After he was well across the room, close to the exit, he took a second to focus on the swirl of emotions circling between his stomach and brain. He managed to push them mostly away, except for bits of rage, and the desire, which he left alone. He concentrated on his wish for lift, and careful performed his spell, chanting, "Shardardia Leviosae," lifting all of the shards up with one fell swoop and flicking them at the troll.

The troll had stopped as soon as Harry has stared casting again, and upon seeing the shards moving towards him, managed to cover his face with his arms. As he lowered them, Harry saw they were peppered with shards of mirror that had slid into them like butter. The troll exhaled slowly, and cricked its neck. It began to casually brush the shards out of its skin–Harry couldn't see any blood, and he wondered how thick a troll's skin really was.

"Granger, get out of there!"

The porcelain shuddered a little bit as Granger leapt from the toilet to the ground, touching down with a running start. Harry hightailed it out of the bathroom as well, and as they ran, they heard the troll, no longer lumbering, but now truly running towards them.

Harry ran out to the right, before doubling back to the left, and indicating for Granger to follow. He panted, "Can you fake the sound of footsteps?"

"What?"

"With magic!"

"No!"

Harry thought for a second, before he kicked off his shoes. "Take off your shoes, and after it slows down, throw all of these down the hall, where it thinks we went out. See if you can make them land on the soles." Seeing Granger hesitate, he yelled, "Take off your fucking shoes!"

As she divested herself of her shoes, Harry took off his socks, getting a feel for the smooth stone ground beneath his toes.

"Shit."

"What?" Harry said.

"They're silenced."

"Rub off the chalk."

Harry shifted from foot to foot. He felt the wand in his hand shake a little. He really only had one or two more spells left in him. After that, he'd pass out. He would need to make this count. "Do you know the tripping jinx?"

She nodded. He smiled. "Good. The troll should barrel down the hall before it sees we aren't there, but even if it just walks, even if it barrels down the hall towards us, cast the spell."

"Then what?"

"Its skin is too thick. I'm going to try to cast a spell where it's a little thinner. While I'm doing that, make a lot of noise. Even if I fail, a teacher should come running."

The troll began to slow down as it neared them. Harry's breath caught in his throat. He wasn't sure whether it was because of fear or excitement. It didn't matter. Harry forced himself to breathe. "Throw them," he muttered.

"I'm about to piss my pants," she whispered.

"Me too. Throw them."

"Okay." She lofted the shoes down the hall. They flew through the air, more aerodynamic than Harry had hoped. They landed a good distance away. There were two or three satisfying thuds. He felt like his entire body tense. All of the thought was squeezed out of it. He felt like an orange being juiced.

"Ready," he breathed.

The ruse was good enough, and Harry felt a deep calm settle in over him, the deepest, most enraged calm he had ever felt. The troll came out of the bathroom like a horse from a starting gate. Granger yelled, "Tridia," her tone somewhere between defiant and hopeless. The troll fell like a rock, and Harry sprinted forward, his short legs propelling his frame as quickly as possible, his shoes still silent, although it seemed like his footsteps were punctuated by Granger's "Sonorous" powered screams for help. The monster in his stomach roared in appreciation of the attack, and he ran up the troll's body, even as it pushed itself up. The nooks and crannies between the cords of the troll's muscles worked as serviceable footholds, and he managed to grab the troll's neck before he lifted his enormous mass all of the way. Harry heaved a leg over the troll's shoulder, and dug his fingers into the troll's neck fat. The troll tried to toss him off by flicking his head back, but it only made him dig in more. The troll tried to drag his chin over his shoulder to transform Harry into a bloody smear of bones and muscles, but before he could get his chin over, Harry stabbed upwards with his wand, spearing him in the nose. The troll froze up, and although Harry could feel gigantic troll mucous dripping down his hand, he retracted the wand a little, and as the scaly monster's roar reached a crescendo in his ears, he cast, "Petrificus Totalus!"

He felt the power of the scaly monster running through his body. The troll fell like a rock, as its eyes turned to stone. Harry narrowly managed to avoid getting his leg crushed by pushing off the troll as it fell, and still hit the ground pretty hard, banging his head. He had felt a good deal of backwash from the spell, and the mucous on his hand had hardened–he knocked it against the troll's leg, and it fell into a couple of pieces on his hand. The wand was a different story–he would have to wash it later.

Harry was somewhat surprised when the teacher showed up, and instead of scolding them for not following orders, very calmly asked them how they had taken down the troll, and then awarded them points. They each lost a point for the damage that had been sustained by the bathroom, but over all came out several points wealthier, and then were summarily dismissed so that "the mess" could be cleaned up.

Walking back to their dorms, heart still beating like mad, Harry stopped, and tried to casually offer his hand to Granger. "We make a good team. Want to formalize it?"

"Do you really think I want to interact with the rest of your idiot team?"

"My group is currently only one. If you join, it will be two."

Granger shook his hand once, and then dropped it. "Acceptable," she said, and started walking again.

Somewhat relieved, Harry decided that would be enough for one day. He could talk to her about the ladder later.

* * *

"I can't believe those pamphlets. Put your hand on the outline in the book? Fuck that."

"It's actually quite good for learning, much more useful than a simple handbook on the spell would have been."

"I don't need someone to hold my hand."

"It also lets you practice the spell as many times as you want without risking burnout."

Granger glared at Harry, but continued pacing in front of the statue of Barnabas the Barmy. "This is fucking dumb. If you're playing a trick on me-"

Harry glanced at the wall—just as before, when he had been distracted, a door had appeared. "You first," he said, gesturing to the door.

She looked the door, and then glared at Harry again, as if the door was his fault, took a deep breath, and entered the room. Harry hung back for a second, pretty sure of what was going to happen, and was unsurprised when he heard Granger gasp and then start cursing.

Harry walked into the room, where Granger was angrily still cursing Cho, who was casually holding a shield charm. He motioned to Granger to stop, and she did, although she looked mutinous.

Cho looked delighted as she let her shield charm fail. In a flash, Granger cursed her again, with an ingrown toenail charm, but it just bounced off her clothes. "Oh, you're almost out of the textbook," Cho cooed. "She's a darling!" She affirmed to the surrounding Vikings. "She's a hedgehog!" The Vikings nodded, as if that meant something to them, and Mira gestured irritably to Harry to get on with it.

Harry nodded, and stepped forward. "Vikings. I, the Pillager, nominated Hermione Granger to become Madame Hermione Granger."

"For whom, monsieur of the Pillagers?" Mira said, monotone.

"Hermione Granger will become second of the Pillagers, Madame Miranda Biggerstaff of the Marauders." Harry was glad his voice didn't shake. He had practiced. Magical bindings could be dangerous if they weren't properly phrased, even weak ones like these.

"Duly noted, Monsieur Harry Potter of the Pillagers. She shall be moved to the For Review section. By the way, I really don't care if any of you have anything to address."

Harry raised his hand. "I need to drop off a book."

"Fine, just shelve it yourself."

Harry moved to shelve the book. Over the years, the Vikings had collected hundreds of the little pamphlets—one of the Fog and Gof twins had suggested that one didn't really need to attend class anymore with all of the material they had in the room, but Harry had a feeling there was still worth in learning the material in order. The book Harry and Hermione had received for felling the troll had been a girl who seemed to have her head in the clouds, explaining a methodology for applying various fundamental magical theories. Harry had just talked to her briefly, since Snape had shown him nearly the same methodology earlier, but Granger had spent hours with her—they still hadn't learned any magical theory yet in their classes, and she had gobbled it up. Filling in the descriptive sticker that the Vikings' shelving system used for sorting, Harry listened to Granger, sounding only somewhat incensed, answer the questions without hesitation. She had been coached.

As they neared the end of her questions, Harry walked back. "All in favor of membership?" Mira asked.

Everyone raised their hand. "Alright, you're in as a full member, Granger. Potter can brief you on dispositions. If that's all, I'm out." No one had anything else to say, so most of the membership left, going about their business.

"Congratulations, that went smoothly," Harry said with a small smile.

Hermione looked rather pleased with herself, and asked, "Dispositions?"

"Each of the different year of the Vikings is tasked with a specific job. For example, the Marauders are in charge of getting new members. It makes finding new Marauders a little tricky, since we find them after the old ones have graduated, but it's not that bad. We, as Pillagers, are in charge of going forth and bringing back crap, and basically just keeping the Vikings well supplied. We'll each be expected to infiltrate one of the 'real' ladders to steal some of their stuff for our own, and we should probably start trying to find an enchanter to be our teammate."

"You can be part of more than one ladder?"

"Not officially, but we've always been off the books anyway. You won't find us in Hogwarts, a History."

"In what?"

"It's a book about Hogwarts, Neville had one."

"What kind of a pretentious dickwad would read a book about their own fucking school? You fucking go there, you prick."

"Well, that's one way of looking at it. Anyway, our biggest task right now is to keep on winning challenges so that we can keep on getting those pamphlets, and to recruit new members. Do you have any friends who are up to snuff?"

"Don't be stupid Potter, I don't have any friends."

"Acquaintances then?"

She shook her head. "I'll keep an eye out, although I haven't been particularly impressed with anyone I've seen. You're alright, although it would be pretty pathetic for you not to be. I don't know how most of these spoiled kids manage to walk and breathe, they're so dumb. If I had known about magic for the past eleven years I know that I wouldn't be this dumb. At least you don't seem to have been wasting your time."

Harry considered whether to enlighten her, but decided it would be more useful to do it another time. It would be a shock, and she was currently elated-she didn't need to be shocked out of it. "Thank you. Let's go, it's probably time for dinner, and I need to get some homework done tonight."

They walked out of the ladder's room, and toward the great hall. On the way, they ran into the Patil twins, who were both wearing formal robes. "I've heard you're looking for new teammates, Harry," one of the twins noted.

"I was looking for three earlier, but Hermione has filled one of the spots—there are still two left."

The twins looked at Hermione, as if reevaluating her. Hermione glared back, which Harry realized was one of her default looks when she wasn't sure exactly what to do.

"Well I know Harry's in Ravenclaw. Which house are you in?"

"Gryffindor."

The twin on the right frowned. "Well, I'm in Gryffindor and my sister's in Ravenclaw, but if you let us join your team, we can sit out on challenges. It's not a big deal. However, Harry, we would really love if our two teams combined. And since you still wouldn't have a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin, you could add another two to the team, you can think of us joining as two for free."

"Do you know these people, Harry?"

Harry refrained from rolling his eyes, although he noticed that the twins were speaking to each other in the Patil sign language, and they didn't look pleased. "Yes, these are Parvati and Padma Patil, although I couldn't tell you which is which."

The twin on the right grimaced and said, "I'm sorry Hermione-"

"Granger to you."

"What?"

"You can call me Granger."

She looked peeved, but carefully schooled her face. "Well, I'm sorry Granger, I'm Parvati, and my sister is Padma."

Harry nodded. "Well, we'll consider your offer, but right now we need to get to dinner."

As Harry moved to leave, Hermione announced, "Okay, we're done considering, we don't want you."

Harry narrowed his eyes at her, but the Patil twins just shrugged. They didn't seem particularly phased. "That's fine, we didn't really expect to be able to join Harry's team. Thanks for considering us," Padma said. They walked off briskly.

Harry resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall. "One of them is an enchantress, and the other is a potions specialist. They have both been trained since birth in their specialties, which would have been extremely useful for challenges, and also for keeping the Vikings restocked. Why the fuck did you reject them out of hand?"

"Well, they wouldn't have been able to help with the Vikings anyway, since they're the same house as us, and they just seem like bitches anyway."

Harry nodded. "I suppose you're right. So you're saying we should exclusively consider people from other houses?"

"And who aren't bitches."

"I would appreciate it if you didn't purposefully antagonize people who are trying to befriend or ally with us."

"I'll take it into consideration."

Harry sighed. "I guess I can't ask for anything more."

"You can ask, but I'll just tell you to go fuck yourself."


End file.
